Memories in Fading Light
by Neoinean
Summary: After unexpectedly running into each other in a Paris cemetery, Amanda and Methos reminisce about their first meeting: at Rebecca’s abbey in St. Anne while Amanda was still in residence as Rebecca’s student.
1. Fancy meeting you here

Universe: A virtual "6th" season wherein "Modern Prometheus" was the finale of season 5 and ignores all events in the "real" season 5 finale and all of season 6, as well as the last movie. This season takes place 1997-1998

Summary: After unexpectedly running into each other in a Paris cemetery, Amanda and Methos reminisce about their first meeting: at Rebecca's abbey in St. Anne while Amanda was still in residence as Rebecca's student.

Disclaimer: If I owned them why would I waste my time posting to fanfic sites? I'd be off making lots and lots of money! But since I'm not, I therefore don't, nor do I pretend to.

AN-"Preset day" of course means Spring, 1998 ;)

* * *

_Montparnasse__ Cemetery__, Paris  
__Present Day_

Methos stood at long last, haphazardly wiping his hands on his soiled pant legs and achieving no more than the spreading of the offending dirt. He accomplished his goal, however. Alexa's grave-site was adorned with flowers once again.

It had been Methos's custom, every spring since Alexa's passing, to plant new flowers at her grave. She'd lived just long enough to see spring blossom two years ago, and now Methos wanted her to have new flowers to admire every year thereafter. It was always annuals he planted, for in doing so he would be forced to return year after year to plant them anew. This gave Alexa variety, and also and probably more importantly, kept her fresh in his mind, for he still wasn't through grieving for her yet. Perhaps when his heart felt ready to move on, he would plant perennials and come tend them less often and with less care, but right now, as he stared down at the colorful assortment of marigolds he'd selected this year, that time seemed too far off to contemplate right now.

"I miss you," he confessed to her grave, the language he used escaping his notice for the moment. "I hope you like the colors. But then, you found beauty even here, in a gray Paris winter..." Methos's thoughts drifted off again as he stood there, oblivious to the cold and the beginnings of rain as he let his memories wash over him in a gentle sea.

* * *

Amanda cursed vehemently, in archaic French, as she stormed along the cemetery path. Her light duster, while sufficient enough to keep out the chill of the air (and conceal her sword), was far from waterproof. She had been so lost in thought as she wandered that she hadn't realized how far away from the cemetery entrance--and her rental car--that she'd traveled. As she felt the dampness of the rain soaking through her duster and clamming her skin she cursed again and quickened her pace, hoping all the while that she was indeed winding her way back the way she came. 

Amanda had been visiting Rebecca, as was her wont every spring. She usually came here on the anniversary of Rebecca's death, or as close to it as circumstances would allow. She felt guilty now and then for the years that she came late, but then she knew that Rebecca would not want her student to constantly put her life on hold. It was enough that she came, Amanda rationalized, and it felt close enough to the truth to ease her conscience. Besides, she actually came early this year--and not because she felt the need to atone for being late the year before. No, something inside her whispered that she should be here _now_, a full three weeks before the anniversary.

Well whatever it was she cursed it now, vehemently and long, in the cold drizzle of a miserable spring morning. And she thought of Rebecca, who would laugh to see her student so disheveled and distraught--right before ushering her inside and into dry clothes. Rebecca would then ply her with tea or strong Turkish-style coffee, depending on what century it was and where she was living at the time, and before Amanda knew it she'd be sitting before a roaring fire, relaxing in the gentle warmth of Rebecca's hearth. Sometimes they would talk, but not always; Rebecca was very good at divining which problems needed talking out and which went better with silence. It was a trick Amanda never managed to learn, but then she was never the student of humanity that Rebecca was. It's what made her such an effective teacher--and Rebecca managed to teach everyone that didn't outrun her, even seasoned immortals--while in contrast Amanda always pawned off what few students she'd found on friends far more qualified.

Amanda never would have guessed, never in another thousand years, that it would be Rebecca's innate love of knowledge--and the need to impart it without prejudice--that would be what finally cost her teacher her head. Even now, four years hence, Amanda still has trouble believing, not that Luthor had killed her--he'd always walked hand and with depravity so it really was par for the course for him. That the weasely little shit had been gunning for Rebecca's head wasn't surprising. No, the real shock was that Rebecca had let him take it. It was the fact that she was really gone.

It had taken Amanda a lot longer than she was prepared to admit to get over her anger at MacLeod. It was petty, sure--MacLeod probably saved her life by interrupting the challenge, but never in all the years she'd known her had Rebecca asked Amanda for help with anything, and then the one time she needed it _Duncan _had to save the day. Amanda had been grateful, in the moment, when the dust from Luthor's quickening was still settling and her prevailing thoughts centered on the fact that they were both alive and Luthor was dead. Afterwards though, as the weeks stretched out and Jean moved back to England and Duncan returned to the States and all that was left was an empty Townhouse--for sale--that still echoed the ghosts of happier times and a cold monument in the styles and traditions of a religion far younger than her teacher.

And, of course, the ruins of St. Anne.

It was as she walked the grounds once more, envisioning the Sanctuary as it once was, that Amanda had finally found peace with her failure to avenge her teacher. Rebecca had never been one to condone revenge; she was like Darius in that way, and Amanda had always wondered at her teacher's relationship to the priest. They were friends, close friends even, but yet there were hints of an intimacy that never quite fit, there in the soft affection of Darius's smile, and faraway gleam in Rebecca's eyes when the conversations drifted. But Amanda's only lingering regret--one that she knew, down to the deepest corners of her soul, that she would carry with her to her own beheading--wasn't that she had failed at killing Luthor. This regret was an older one that was simply brought out and polished in the aftermath of Rebecca's death, and was slowly being sharpened with each passing year. In all her years, all her centuries, she could never shake the feeling that she had somehow failed Rebecca's teachings, and now Rebecca was dead and Amanda was left with the ache of knowing that she'd never truly proven her worth to her teacher, and that now she never would.

The drizzle opened up into a steady rain, and the drops ran down her face and mixed in with tears of frustration and anger, pain and loss, to the point where she could deny even to herself that she was crying. It was the point where this charade had reached its pinnacle that she felt it: the presence of another immortal. She tensed involuntarily, feeling the weight of her sword in her hidden pocket in her duster, and scanned the cemetery looking for the source of the buzz.

* * *

Methos didn't notice that he was soaked to the skin, or that his silent tears had long since ceased, or even that the rain had washed the dirt from his hands and turned the soil on his pants to mud. He didn't notice anything at all, except for the name on the cold stone before him… 

…And the sudden intrusion of the presence of another immortal. The feeling of that presence broke across his senses like water upon rock, for all its fury affecting little change. Methos was armed, as always, but he didn't care right now. This was holy ground: no immortal in this day and age would _dare_ assault him here. And in this relative safety (and overwhelming apathy towards it) Methos didn't give a damn _who_ the other was. He had more important thoughts to dwell on right now.

* * *

Amanda came into a clearing on the far side of the cemetery, where the graves were less crowded. Once there, she rounded the corner of a particularly tall and ridiculously phallic monument to finally catch sight of a man standing over a grave. This mysterious immortal didn't bother to acknowledge her presence even as she felt the buzz soften and retreat into the background of the constant immortal song within her head. 

Finally deciding that the other was in no way interested in her being there, Amanda turned to leave, feeling slightly guilty for intruding on what was probably a very private moment. It was the beginnings of her movement away from him that caught the man's attention.

"This is holy ground," the immortal said in perfect French. "And you're not welcome."

Startled, Amanda blushed at having been caught in an obvious faux pas. "I'm sorry," she apologized quickly, also in flawless French. "I didn't mean to intrude—" her apologetic babble was interrupted by a sudden realization: she knew that voice! "Methos?"

The immortal in question stiffened perceptibly and then released a long-suffering sigh. "What are you doing here, Amanda?" he asked tiredly, switching to English.

"Just out for a stroll," Amanda answered lightly, returning to English herself and eager to forget her own depressed musings for a time. "I could ask the same of you."

Methos had not the heart to answer, but he did turn around to face her properly. In doing so he stepped aside, and Amanda caught sight of whose grave it was.

"Oh," she said softly, blushing slightly even in the cold rain. "I'm sorry." This apology held more sincerity than the last, and Methos was both amused and touched.

"I come here every spring, to plant fresh flowers for her," he explained, not entirely sure why he was telling her that.

Amanda nodded thoughtfully. "They're beautiful," she appraised, again with acute sincerity. In him she detected the same misery she herself was feeling… well, maybe not exactly the same, but near enough. Grief in all its many shades was still grief.

Then she took stock of his appearance. Methos was soaked through, and his pants were muddy from dirt and rain. He looked a wreck, but also, he looked as though he didn't much care. "I'd say you're a sight for sore eyes, but I think actually you're more of an eyesore." She kept her tone light in diffidence to how Methos had come to be in such a sorry state.

Methos's eyes flashed bewilderment for a moment before belatedly appraising his appearance. Then he smiled at her in that amused yet defeated way of his. "And you, my dear, look very much like a drowned Italian rat."

Amanda snorted, now remembering that her jacket and boots were both Armani. There went several thousand francs. Well, at least they weren't hers. "I was on my way out of here when it started to rain," she explained. "You on the other hand…"

"I wasn't ready to go yet," Methos answered, softly defensive.

"Why do I get the feeling that you didn't even notice?"

Methos held her gaze, but the haunted and empty look he gave her before he grinned and his eyes flashed the green of Adam Pierson was enough to answer all her questions.

"It's not like you to ruin a good outfit without cause," Methos observed, deftly changing the subject. "Just what exactly are you doing here? Avoiding one of us?"

Amanda detected curiosity in his voice, but no concern. She wasn't sure if she should be offended. "I was visiting someone," she answered matter-of-factly, a flawless carefree façade erected thanks to over one thousand years of practice.

"I always thought your friends were a bit more… lively," he quipped, arching an eyebrow and flashing that charming Adam Pierson grin. Yes… she definitely could not take offense. He was retreating behind such walls as a defense mechanism and that wasn't something Amanda was about to begrudge him.

And besides, she had the perfect comeback. "I was with Rebecca."

It had the desired effect. Methos's smile faded and his eyes regained their haunted quality. "Forgive me," he said, slightly breathless, his gilded eyes cast downwards.

Amanda shrugged and waved it off. "It'll have been four years by the end of the month," she said. "I always visit her… near the anniversary."

"Twenty-third of April?"

Amanda blinked in surprise. "You remember the date?"

Methos smiled sadly in admission. "Alexa passed two years and five days later. They help me remember each other."

Amanda offered a faint smile, not sure of what to say to that. Finally she decided to change the subject yet again. "We should get out of here before we're both washed away," she said, the carefree tone returning as she gestured to the ever-swelling puddles in gentle downpour.

Methos arched an eyebrow. "Afraid you'll melt?"

Amanda shot him a look. "Funny. Where are you parked?"

Methos flashed an amused grin and merely shrugged.

"You mean you _walked _here?"

"Like I was supposed to know it was going to rain," he protested in his defense.

Amanda just laughed. "I'm over by the other entrance," she said, turning to leave.

"Good for you," Methos dismissed before turning back around to stare into the marble of Alexa's headstone.

Amanda released an audible, long-suffering sigh. "I'll give you a lift," she said pointedly, as though Methos had missed the obvious.

For a time Methos didn't answer, nor even acknowledge her, as he continued to fix his gaze towards the grave. Amanda's impatient expression softened and for some reason she felt the urge to approach him and put a hand on his shoulder, but she was never very good at offering physical comfort and so she stayed in place, unconsciously worrying her bottom lip as she waited.

"Fine," Methos caved at last, as though it was some concession on his part. Then with a sigh and something softly spoken to Alexa that Amanda couldn't hear, Methos turned back around.

Amanda smiled encouragingly at him and gestured for him to follow her. This he did, and eventually he fell in step beside her and they walked a pace in comfortable silence.

"I've lived over eleven hundred years, Methos," said Amanda at last, her tone casual yet echoing her earlier grief. "And I still mourn for people I buried a thousand years ago."

Methos laughed, but not unkindly. "If you're looking for me to say that time eventually makes it better then I'd have to lie to you." His tone was light, tripping over the surprising honesty of the words--surprising not for their inherent truth, but for the fact that Methos offered it so casually. "I still grieve for those I've lost many more years ago than that."

Amanda grimaced, a touch of bitter humor in it. "Actually, I was just pointing out how much immortality sucks sometimes." This was rewarded with a soft snort of abbreviated laughter from Methos before their companionable silence returned.

"Do you wish it had never been?" Methos suddenly asked. "That you had just died when you were supposed to instead of waking up again?"

The question quite thoroughly surprised her; it wasn't something Amanda had ever honestly considered (while sober), and it certainly wasn't something she'd ever expected to hear from _Methos _of all people, but Amanda saved from having to answer by their arrival at her rental sedan. She fished the keys from her pocket, disarmed the alarm, and unlocked the doors.

"Where can I drop you?" she asked, her voice studiously casual as she climbed in on the driver's side.

"I have an apartment in the Latin Quarter," Methos answered, apparently content to let her dodge the question.

"_Adam Pierson_ can afford that?" Amanda asked in amusement.

"No, but the watchers who pay for his living expenses can."

"I thought you said that you were through with the watchers?"

Methos shrugged. "They changed my mind."

"Oh? And how'd they manage that?"

"They can be bloody persuasive at times," Methos grumbled, petulant and long-suffering.

"I'm sure," Amanda purred.

Methos merely scoffed. Then: "turn left up here."

The rest of the drive was completed in silence, save for Methos odd comment for direction. Presently Amanda found herself parked in front of a well-to-do townhouse in a row of almost but not quite identical three-story brick buildings.

"Thanks for the lift," he said, gazing out the car window at his humble abode. He made no move to get out of the car.

"I thought you stayed at the barge whenever you were in town," said Amanda, breaking her long silence.

"Well, I need a place to stay when MacLeod's not around," Methos offered with a slight shrug. There was a sadness in it though, and Amanda was reminded of the strained she had perceived between them last Christmas. Neither of them would say a thing, preferring rather to pretend that the noticeable tension did not exist between them.

Amanda's curiosity was piqued. "Very true," she conceded. "And I bet the watchers were beginning to get suspicious."

Surprisingly, Methos laughed. "Because MacLeod is aware of them, Joe tells his people to keep a very good distance away from the barge so as not to spook him," he explained. "Even with binoculars, it enough that I can come and go as I please without too much trouble."

"By keeping your head down and your coat collar turned up," Amanda concluded with a rueful head-shake. Typical Methos. She'd bet money that he'd even put the watcher up to that.

Methos merely grinned. Indeed Joe did keep the men assigned to MacLeod in Paris back farther than usual protocol allowed. The argument for this being that, ever since that debacle with the tribunal two years ago, whenever MacLeod perceived the watchers were getting too close to him he'd deliberately lose the shadow and disappear for days or even weeks. MacLeod was too active a player in the game to not have a regular watcher so they couldn't back off for a few years to let things settle between them. MacLeod was content to go about his daily business so long as he didn't _feel_ like he was being watched. The watchers, therefore, were able to track his general movements well enough, but at the cost of a detailed picture of the people he chose to associate with… people like _Adam Pierson_. If the other were immortal, then their watcher would know about the meeting anyway… if the other _had_ a watcher, of course.

"It works well enough for Paris," said Methos, sighing slightly. "Adam Pierson is well known out here. Being seen freely associating with immortals would be… unfortunate."

Amanda frowned. "Is that why you didn't want me to give you a lift?"

"Are you telling me that you didn't bother to lose your watcher as soon as you landed in Paris, Amanda sweet?"

"It's not my fault if the poor dears can't keep up."

"You know, you really are incorrigible."

"Learned from the best."

Methos laughed. "Don't start with me, _Leaswene_," he warned with humor.

Amanda had the good graces to look indignant. "Me?" she questioned in mock aghast. "You started it, _Adræfan_!"

Methos threw his head back in mock suffering as Amanda laughed. "I'm sure MacLeod would _love _to know that name of yours," he teased. "And it's origins."

"You wouldn't dare!" Amanda countered. "Else Joe and his chronicles might learn _yours_."

Methos went suddenly still, and all at once tension seemed to bleed from him into very the air. Amanda could have kicked herself--names were _very important_ to Methos. It was one of the more esoteric traits that he and Rebecca shared.

"I don't go back on my word, _Methos_. You know that," she demurred, thoroughly contrite.

For his part Methos sighed, his body relaxing by degrees. "Forget about it," he dismissed as he suddenly removed his seatbelt and opened the car door.

Amanda hesitated; instead of driving off she sat and watched as Methos crossed the short distance to his front door. She saw him fumble through his pockets for his keys for a full minute before coming to the dejected conclusion that he must have left them upstairs. An amused smile twitched Amanda's lips as she killed her engine and got out of the car.

"Forget your keys?" she asked, teasing.

Methos shot her an annoyed glare as he pulled out his wallet.

Amanda balked. "You _aren't_ going to use a credit card on that..."

"Don't be ridiculous," Methos scoffed as he removed a small piece of cloth and began to unravel it.

Amanda's eyes widened. "Lock picks!"

Methos selected two of the five instruments in his hand and held them aloft for her to see. "I never leave home without them," he quipped as he bent down to go about picking his own lock.

"Why don't you let me do that," Amanda offered, almost condescendingly.

"I'm not totally incapable, _Leaswene_," he said dryly as the lock suddenly popped. He turned the handle and opened the door with flourish.

"So I see," Amanda relented, still thoroughly amused. "I should have known."

"Well you did say you leaned from the best," Methos reminded her as he entered his front hallway.

"I didn't mean you!" Amanda retorted as she followed him in and shut the door.

"Oh, you wound me," said Methos with mock suffering. It was then that he noticed that Amanda was standing behind him at the base of the stairs. His questioning look was met with an innocent stare. "I suppose you're wanting to come up then," he said at last.

Amanda's smile turned genuine. "I gave you a lift. The least you could do is offer me coffee."

Methos half shrugged, nodding. "Come on then."

Wordlessly Methos led them both up to the third floor, the old stairs groaning ever-so-slightly beneath their weight. Once they reached the top, Methos gestured for Amanda to precede him. Once she was standing at the door, she glanced over her shoulder to see Methos staring expectantly at her.

"_Really_," she sighed, exasperated, as she fished through her purse for her own lock picks. She removed what looked to be a lady's nail care kit and opened the lid.

Methos gave an impressed nod when he saw that the nail file and clippers and the like had been replaced with different assortments of lock picks. "You get top marks for style."

"Just wait 'til you see the final product," she said distractedly to the doorknob as she inserted two long, slender slivers of aluminum. The lock released smoothly and Amanda stood, replacing her lock picks in their case. "Voila!" She mimicked his flourish as she thrust the door open.

"Not bad," Methos observed with a slight grin.

"Not bad?" Amanda echoed, scoffing, as she led the way into the apartment. "I did that faster than you did!"

"The outer lock is the hardest to crack," Methos defended.

"I'm sure."

Methos held up his hands in defeat as Amanda began a spot inspection of his apartment. She noticed that it was fairly well kept, with high ceilings and hardwood floors. They stood in a short entrance hallway, long enough for a coat closet and a framed movie poster for _Au Revoir, Les Enfants_ on its opposite wall.

Amanda lead the way into the apartment, the hallway opening up into a larger room that served as both kitchen (on the left) and dining room (on the right). A passing glance at Methos as he headed to the right showed her that the kitchen was tidy, indeed not looking like it had been used much of recent. The dining area, where Amanda stood and watched as Methos opened the fridge in search of a beer, had a hutch for dinerware against one wall and a small table backed against the wall other wall by the windows, surrounded by three chairs. The past week's mail was strewn about in hastily sorted piles. A potted plant stood in the corner by the window, and the only other decoration was a large replica painting of Van Gogh's _Starry Night_ that was by now an antique in its own right.

"Nice place you got here," she offered, taking in the inexpensive yet tasteful furniture and decorations in the next room. There was an archway in the back wall of the kitchen-dining room, directly opposite the entrance hall, that led into the living room. "A little Spartan…"

"Try actually _living_ in Sparta for a year before you go making analogies," Methos chastised, grabbing a much-sought-after bottle of beer.

Amanda shook her head at his inquiring glance. "Oh, I've been there," she assured. "Granted not in the right time period…" Her voice trailed off as she walked through the archway into the living room and began a small tour of the rest of Methos's apartment. She saw that his living room had a futon against one wall with a run-of-the-mill Formica coffee table in front of it facing a modest entertainment center on the other wall. The television was small but had a built in VCR. Amanda didn't bother to look in the cabinet below, surmising that a modest collection of videotapes sat within. The shelving along the right hand side held a CD player and a tape deck along with a few assorted knickknacks; the largest bottom shelf had overlarge, heavy-looking books. A decent CD rack stood next to the entertainment center.

Methos snapped the top off his bottle and took a long, refreshing swig as he waited for her to finish showing herself around his modest abode. "But you would have looked simply _ravishing_ in a toga," he said, almost wistfully yet still loud enough for her to hear.

"As I'm sure you did," she returned, her voice distant. She had wandered through the small hallway behind the living room, noticing a small yet adequate bathroom next to what Methos had set up to be his bedroom. This too was modest, having only a double bed and small dresser whose top was bare aside from a reading lamp.

Above the bed hung a rather large tapestry. Far from antique, it appeared rather like one of the new-age concoctions college students and hippies prefer for decoration. The design was rather eerie, however. From the view of someone lying on a forest floor, four trees grew up into simulated enormous height from the four corners of the tapestry. Their limbs reached towards dull stars, all save four. These four caught and wove towards each other just off from the center of the tapestry. Inside the slightly octagonal shape those branches created, the dark blue sky turned pitch, and there were no stars. A sickle moon was the only shape present there, and Amanda shuddered before turning her back on the bedroom.

The room she saw on the other side of the hallway was larger than the bedroom, and Methos had set it up to be his office of sorts. A decent sized computer desk filled one corner, and boxes covered it along with most of the floor.

"Been here long?" she asked in amusement as she walked back into the living room area.

"Barely a week," Methos informed her. "I'm not exactly settled yet."

"So I noticed," Amanda mused with a grin. "But seriously, you could have gone with more… amenities," she stated plainly as she came back through the archway into the kitchen area.

"The watchers pay for the rent, not the decorations."

"Nor for the groceries," said Amanda dejectedly as she shut the refrigerator door. "All you have is beer and water!"

"Does a grad student need anything else?" he asked in all innocence.

"Coffee?"

"Ah, yes," Methos conceded. "Third cabinet on your left."

Amanda fetched the jar of coffee grounds, then cast her gaze around the countertops, seeing a toaster-oven and a set of steak knifes, but not the appliance she was looking for. "Coffee machine?"

Methos grinned. "Still haven't bought one, I'm afraid."

Amanda shifted her gaze between the immortal and the jar of coffee grounds in her hand a few times, a confused expression on her face. "Honestly…" she released a long-suffering sigh before returning the coffee grounds to their rightful cabinet. "When I said you could offer me coffee in return for the lift home, I meant of course in the _liquid_ form."

Methos laughed merrily. "But you didn't say that now, did you."

Amanda groaned. "You know, I think you've been hanging around Joe too long."

Methos arched an eyebrow.

"I don't recall you being so easily amused, especially by tormenting poor innocent ladies who try and help a guy out."

"A lady you may be at the best of times, Amanda, but innocent you are not."

"Oh ha! Very funny. That must be how you rationalize taking shameless advantage of me--just the next bloke in line."

Methos's face darkened, that cold stillness congealing around him again as his eyes flashed golden. "Innocence is arbitrary, Leaswene," he said gravely. "You know that."

Amanda swallowed around the painfully dry lump in her throat as she searched for words. Conversing with Methos was a bit like strolling through a minefield, but he always had a way of making her ashamed of her missteps. Not even MacLeod could managed that with such consistency. It was another in the long line of quirks Methos and Rebecca shared.

Then suddenly Methos blinked, and banished the pall that had settled over them with a shake of his head. Warmth bled back into his expression and he shrugged, shattering the stillness. "Well if you want coffee c'mon, I know a place."

Amanda smiled brightly, relieved. "That'd be great."

Methos headed for the bedroom. "I'll just grab a change of clothes…"

"Take your time," Amanda called after him.

Methos was quickly changed, however. He reemerged wearing a clean pair of jeans and a loose long-sleeve tee shirt.

"Feel better?"

Methos nodded. "Much." He brushed passed her on his way to the door, grabbing his coat along the way. "Now let's go."

* * *


	2. I see you two have met before

Amanda and Methos sat in comfortable silence, each sipping a piping hot cup of coffee. Methos had taken her to a small café around the corner from his apartment. It was still raining, but they'd walked there anyway. Methos seemed quite content to walk in the rain, and since her outfit was already ruined anyway… Now they sat inside, Amanda staring at the streaking raindrops on the large front window of the café, its name reading backwards in bronze lettering on this side of the glass. Methos, for his part, seemed to be staring off into space, warming his hands on his coffee mug. 

"Come here often?" Amanda quipped, trying to pull him back from… wherever it is his mind is. "Methos?"

"Hmm?"

"I have no idea where you were right now, but I'm sure it has to be better than here," she dryly observed, once again stealing a glance out the window as the rain splashed up from the sidewalk as it hit in overlarge drops.

Methos offered a thin smile. "I was just thinking of Alexa. She thought Paris was beautiful, even when it rained."

Amanda's expression softened. "I wish I could have met her."

That smile warmed, then. "You would have liked her, Amanda. She had this way about her… You know that saying about the briefest flames burning brightest? That was her."

Amanda's soft smile slowly fell as she considered her next words. "I'm sorry," she began, feeling her way with cautious but genuine sincerity. "For thinking that you would have killed me for the crystal, I mean."

Methos smiled slightly, slighter than his brief laugh. "I think MacLeod was more upset at the idea than I was."

Amanda nodded. "He swore up and down that you wouldn't betray a friend."

"He didn't know me well back then." That statement, coupled with the expression on Methos's face, gave Amanda sudden pause.

"I kept thinking he meant me," she said. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that we… weren't exactly friends."

Methos blinked. "We're not?" He sounded sincerely surprised.

Amanda quickly schooled her shocked expression. "I'd like to think we are _now_," she offered. "We weren't then. I was just the little girl, Rebecca's student who you named Leaswene."

Methos half-shrugged. "It sounded like a good idea at the time," came the enigmatic reply.

"Rebecca agreed with you," Amanda admitted quietly.

That brought Methos up short. He sat up straighter. "You never said anything before," he said, sharply.

"Because I was still Amanda to her."

A look of rueful realization crept across Methos's face. "You asked her what your name meant, didn't you."

Amanda could scarcely believe that this hadn't occurred to him _before_, but she nodded as though it were a trivial thing. "Right after you said that it didn't fit me, and took to calling me Leaswene."

"I never meant to hurt you," he said, and meant it.

Amanda snorted a laugh, bit back a retort about how he hadn't cared that she might have been hurt incidentally, either. "No," she admitted. "You just never intended me to ask Rebecca about it."

"You always seemed intimidated by her."

Amanda nodded. "Oh I was. I was just never hesitant to ask her questions, either."

"Now why does that not surprise me?"

Brief laughter quieted back to comfortable silence for a time, until Amanda broke it..

"I meant what I said though. About being sorry."

Methos pulled his gaze away from the depths of his coffee. "I know you did."

"You would never lay a hand on me," Amanda continued. "I forgot about that for some reason."

"I wished I could have forgotten." Methos surprised them both with the admission. "Else I would have taken Luthor's head the very next day. I was in Paris, with all those lovely watcher files at my fingertips. It would have been so easy..." Darkness pooled in the depths of his expression, swallowing up the green of his eyes and leaving them hard, chips of golden flint.

Amanda sympathized.

"I didn't know you were in town. I figured that you would have gone to the funeral if you were."

"Watcher," was all Methos had to say. It was a good reason, and the derision that crept into his tone only added validity to the statement.

Amanda didn't question it. "I didn't run into you again until a full year later," she said, trying to change the subject to happier things.

Methos nodded. "Kalas," he spat, with considerable venom.

"I don't know who was the more surprised," Amanda mused. "Me for seeing you as a watcher, or MacLeod for seeing that we've met before."

That startled a laugh out of the ancient immortal. "I think it was the fact that you never told him that you knew who I was." He didn't need to elaborate.

"He was just surprised that I could keep that type of secret," Amanda concluded dejectedly, staring down into her own coffee.

"I wasn't." The reassurance fell swiftly from Methos's lips, and with utter sincerity. Amanda looked up, but saw no platitudes in Methos's expression. Only truth.

But that didn't mean she believed it. "Not of Leaswene?"

Methos shook his head. "Not of Amanda," he corrected.

A brief pause and then Amanda's face lit up with the brightest smile she had. Methos had no choice but to share in the sudden joy.

"He was really worried about you," Methos said at length, remembering. "He didn't think he'd ever see you again. He thought he'd lost you."

Amanda nodded. "I know." Then, quieter: "I thought I'd lost me too."

"Kalas killed many immortals," Methos said gravely. "Many much better than you."

Amanda shot him a withering look. It was easier than dealing with the truth of the words. "Gee, your confidence is underwhelming."

Methos half shrugged, offering that lopsided, disarming 'Adam Pierson' grin. But it didn't stay long. "I didn't even know you were in town until MacLeod said that Kalas had you."

"Duncan said that you and Joe came to Paris to deal with that watcher's wife—"

"Christine Salzer."

"Right. Christin Salzer." Amanda sighed, letting the memories resurface. "Kalas killed her husband."

"And for revenge, she wanted to destroy us all."

Amanda nodded. "You know, I was more worried about Duncan keeping his head a while longer than I was about that whole _Tribune _business."

"I know," Methos acknowledged, and something in the way he said that gave Amanda pause. She studied him, narrowing her gaze, but he said nothing more nor was anything betrayed by his demeanor. At length Amanda sighed and pushed back in the booth.

"But I'll never forget the look on his face when he saw we knew each other!" she exclaimed, laughing suddenly at the memory.

Methos joined in the laugh. "That certainly was a Kodak moment," he agreed.

* * *

_Paris  
May 29th, 1995_

Methos watched as Joe headed back towards his car. He had damage control to take care of. The watchers needed to know. He would have to explain just why exactly he had failed to kill Christine Salzer. MacLeod had just wandered off, vanishing into the morning fog. He'd ensured that Joe wouldn't have to live with the… reality, of having killed Christine, but in doing so, the Highlander had made the situation that much worse for immortals--and watchers--everywhere.

With a heavy sigh, Methos redirected his attention to the front doors of the _Tribune _building, vainly hoping that Christine would just walk back out the door after having had a miraculous change of heart. Of course, when he realized what he was doing he had to shake his head and laugh quietly at himself. Then he walked away, leaving fate to choose its course. For lack of anything better to do, he hailed a cab and headed for the barge.

He sensed the buzz when he reached the gang plank. MacLeod was home. Or, someone was. Methos backed off, retreating to solid ground, and let the Highlander come to him.

Duncan stepped into view with his katana drawn and ready. Many thoughts and emotions flashed in his expressive face as soon as he recognized the world's oldest immortal.

"Happy I'm not Kalas and upset I'm not Amanda?" Methos asked through that disarming grin of his.

Duncan deftly tucked his katana behind his shoulder. "Something like that," he admitted. "Though I probably would have been happy to see Kalas and get this over with."

"Not his style," said Methos as he walked back up the gang plank. "If he indeed does have Amanda, he will use her against you to the best of his ability."

The two immortals stepped back inside the boat.

"Don't remind me," said Duncan as he made his way over to where his opened bottle of scotch sat next to a dirty shot glass.

Methos thought about stopping him. After all, he would need all of his senses about him if he were to take on Kalas. But then, a brooding and depressed Duncan had less chance of winning than an angry Duncan, and perhaps the alcohol could help with that, so Methos left it alone.

"I can't believe she's gone," Duncan confessed to his now empty shot glass.

"You don't know that she is," Methos countered, trying to sound reassuring.

"Kalas won't just _let_ her go."

"No, but if she were dead, he _would_ use the fact to taunt you. And he hasn't called."

Duncan nodded dumbly and sat down heavily in his chair. Methos had already claimed the entire couch.

"I told her not to go," said Duncan, referring to the classic diversion tactic used to separate them earlier. "She went anyway."

"Since when does Amanda listen to you?"

Duncan managed a strained, discordant laugh. "It was a classic divide and conquer. Of course they didn't want me. I should have known that, should have seen…"

Methos sat up and swung his legs back down where they belonged. He leaned intently forward, his gaze fixed on the Highlander. "You can stop that right now," he said firmly. "You have no chance at beating Kalas if you're trying to beat yourself too. He doesn't need any help from you."

Duncan turned, surprised to hear Methos say such things, but then he nodded. "I can't help it," he said weakly in his defense.

Methos laughed slightly, knowingly.

"Amanda was only doing this to help me," Duncan continued. "I guess she felt like she owed me or something."

"Well, she does."

Duncan's laugh turned biter. "She should've known better. She's still the only person who can make me laugh when… I don't much feel like laughing."

Methos sighed. He could really use that kind of help now! "Amanda has been called many things," he began, "and most of them are rather unflattering. But never let it be said that she isn't loyal to her friends, not for the important things."

Duncan nodded at the truth of his friend's words. "Immortal things."

This time Methos nodded. He could really use a shot of that scotch right about now. Too many of Rebecca's students had already died...

Those depressed musings (that somehow Methos had allowed the Highlander to drag him into) were interrupted by the sensation of an approaching immortal. They both stood and drew their swords. Duncan advanced on the front door while Methos hung back, making ready to make a break for it through the rear entrance. Then the door swung open and…

"Amanda!" Duncan dropped his katana quite unceremoniously on the couch and rushed towards her.

"Who else is here?" she asked. Her sword was drawn yet she didn't hold it in a threatening position.

Methos obligingly stepped into view as he stowed his sword. Amanda's eyes went wide and she dropped her own sword into the umbrella stand. However, her chance at reacting to this definite surprise was taken away by MacLeod, who used that same moment to envelop her in a bear hug. Amanda returned the embrace, kicking up her heels as he swept her off her feet and around in a circle.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you!" Duncan exclaimed, grinning like an idiot.

"I can guess," Amanda teased, kissing him playfully. Then she replanted her feet and stepped back. Duncan kept his hands reassuringly on her shoulders to make sure she was really there. "Miss me?"

"You have no idea."

Amanda grinned and allowed him to kiss her passionately. She responded in kind, of course. It was almost enough to make her forget Methos's presence in the back of the barge. Then the world's oldest immortal cleared his throat. Duncan stepped back, simultaneously pulling Amanda into view. Methos got his first good look at her then. Her hair was shorter than the last time he saw her. She looked good.

"Oh, Adam, this is Amanda," Duncan introduced. "Amanda—"

The rest of the introduction was cut off by Amanda finally recovering from her surprise. "Adræfan!" she squealed with delight and rushed over to him. Methos caught her roughly and they kissed both cheeks. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"Amanda," Methos greeted rather awkwardly.

"Adræfan?" came Duncan's confused yet amused voice. He was still standing where Amanda had left him.

"_Adam?_" Amanda asked in disbelief, ignoring Duncan.

Methos shrugged. "Adam Pierson at your service."

Amanda looked him up and down. "Not bad," she conceded. "It suits well enough."

"Adræfan?" Duncan had come to stand next to them now, and was definitely sure that somewhere, he had missed something.

"It was my name in England, circa 850 AD," Methos explained to the Scot. Amanda flashed him a questioning look, her eyes searching.

"It's alright," he said to her. "He knows who I am."

Amanda shot Duncan that same look only to discover that his expression was a mirror of her own. Then Duncan looked at Methos, who nodded gravely over Amanda's head.

"You never told me you knew Methos," said Duncan, still trying to get his mind around this evening's events.

"Neither did you," Amanda retorted.

Methos tried rather unsuccessfully to restrain a chuckle.

"And you never said you knew Amanda!" Duncan wasn't about to let Methos off the hook for this one.

Methos shrugged. "You never asked."

"How long have you two known each other?" Duncan asked, still in disbelief.

"I could ask you the same thing," said Amanda, looking back and forth between the both of them.

"I only met him two month ago!" Duncan defended. "And you?"

Amanda just smiled innocently, which only served to irritate the Highlander further. Methos decided to intervene before this got ugly.

"Did I not just remind you that Amanda's loyalty should not be questioned when it comes to important matters, MacLeod?" he said weightily.

Duncan stuttered a bit, pointing back and forth between the two of them, before being silenced by their identically innocent expressions.

"I met him back when I was Rebecca's student," said Amanda, turning serious. "_Before_ he was the world's oldest immortal."

Duncan looked to Methos, who nodded.

"Rebecca and I were acquainted," he admitted.

Amanda could tell that he wasn't about to say more on the subject and so she wisely decided to change it. "As much as I hate to interrupt our little reunion of sorts, _Methos_, what on earth are you doing here?"

Methos sighed heavily, now reminded of the original reason he was in Paris. "You'd better sit down," he warned.

Duncan did so immediately, shifting his katana onto the coffee table as he settled heavily on the couch and pulling Amanda onto his lap. Methos just shook his head in amusement as he grabbed the Highlander's now forgotten bottle of scotch and wordlessly handed it to Amanda. She looked from the bottle back to the immortal who gave it to her as Methos reclaimed his seat in the chair, and her look turned fearful. Methos nodded, wordlessly reassuring that yes indeed she may want that bottle before he's through.

"I'm not going to like this, am I," she said to that bottle.

Methos shook his head. "No you're not," he admitted. "Now, have you ever heard of an organization called the Watchers?"

* * *

_The Café  
Present Day_

Methos and Amanda had finally stopped laughing. The look on Duncan's face was forever going to be the bright spot of that entire evening.

"I still can't believe Rebecca never mentioned the Watchers," said Amanda, her voice wistful.

"She was not one to share her secrets lightly," Methos pointed out with a weight that sealed the doom of their earlier mirth.

Amanda grimaced. "Tell me about it. I've known her… knew her... for over a thousand years. I still don't think she ever told me more than was necessary in the moment."

Methos gave her the courtesy of ignoring her slip of the tenses. "I know what you mean."

"Like when we first met," Amanda continued. "There you were, this strange immortal who rode up to the abbey like a bat out of hell, the king's men hot on your heels..." Methos groaned and covered his eyes with his hands. "We finally get you safe inside, and Rebecca knows you! Of course, when I ask her who you are, all she said was that you were the 'Eofrea,' whatever that meant, and that you sought sanctuary."

Methos frowned. "I don't remember that part," he confessed.

"Well, you had already died at that point."

"Ah."

* * *

_Abbey St. Anne  
Wessex  
851 AD_

It was mid afternoon on a clear summer day. Amanda and Rebecca were circling each other with drawn swords on the roof of one of the abbey towers. After an exhausting morning of Latin grammar exercises, Amanda was thoroughly enjoying sword practice. The fat, elderly monk she had for Latin was nice enough, if slightly deaf, but swords she got to practice with Rebecca alone. That fact alone made each and every cut, scrape, fall, and humiliating defeat worthwhile.

"I could have had you that time!" Amanda pouted from her spot on the ground. Rebecca was holding both swords pointed towards her student's head. Her expression was hard, but Amanda paid no heed. She was too busy massaging her sore backside.

"I'm sure," Rebecca noted, not quite dismissively and yet far from sincere. "But only if you remember to never turn your back on an opponent."

"It would have been fine if you'd stayed where I left you," Amanda groused.

Rebecca's stern expression softened as she extended a helping hand to her student. Amanda took it and was instantly lofted to her feet. Idly she wondered if her teacher ever got tired. Then Rebecca returned her sword.

"You should never be where you opponent expects you to be," her teacher advised. "Now, how were you standing before I disarmed you?"

Amanda got back into her stance and made ready to demonstrate the stroke she had used right before her ill-timed twirl when suddenly one of the young gardeners burst through the door and onto the roof.

"My Lady!"

The gardener stopping short and out of range when he saw Rebecca and Amanda with their swords out. Rebecca turned sharply. She did not like to be disturbed when teaching swordplay… hence the rooftop location.

"What is it, Grenhyrde?

"My Lady, there's a rider approaching. He's got six mounted archers behind him!"

Rebecca cursed in a language Amanda didn't recognize. "Where?"

"Towards the North Gate, Lady," said the gardener, pointing.

Rebecca slipped her sword into her robe and took off at a run, cutting across the high reinforced walls of the abbey and drawing guardsmen out of their stations as she went. Amanda and Grenhyrde followed closely on her heels. Finally she came to the center of the inner northern wall. From there she looked across the vegetable gardens and to the far wall where the North Gate sat, down and locked as usual. Amanda and Grenhyrde came to stand on either side of her.

From this high vantage point, Amanda could see a rider, clothed in forest greens, weaving in an irregular pattern as arrows whizzed by him. While this sight was odd and exciting in its own right, Amanda noticed that the mysterious rider had to have been steering his horse with his knees, because his arms were waving frantically, trying to catch the abbey's attention. He had a piece of cloth clutched in each hand, one yellow, one white. While Amanda failed to note the significance of this, Rebecca was instantly on alert.

"North gate!" she called out. "Raise the Sanctuary flags and open the gate!"

Amanda and Grenhyrde watched in awe as two giant flags were sent up the poles, one on each side. A golden flag, richly embroidered with green thread in a design that Amanda couldn't make out as it flapped in the breeze, overlapped the crest of the King of Wessex on the left of the gate. On the right side, a Silver flag, equally embroidered in dark thread in another indiscernible pattern now covered the Anglo-Saxon Christian symbol. This being done, the large gate groaned to life, attendants hoisting it aloft from within the walls.

"What are those flags?" Amanda whispered to Grenhyrde, squinting as she tried to see them better.

"Archers!" Rebecca called out as soon as the gate began to rise. Bowmen appeared from their hiding holes and took positions along the top of the north wall.

"You've never seen them before?" Grenhyrde asked. He had grown up within these walls, whereas Amanda had only been here a little over a year.

"Keep the gate!" Rebecca called out, ignoring the conversation behind her. "Give him cover!"

Amanda watched as a lieutenant took command of his guards and a volley of arrows was released. They sailed passed the mysterious rider, who was by now hunched down along his horse's neck and steering deftly towards the open gate. The six pursuers faltered as arrows sailed at them, falling short of their marks by design in hopes of deterring the pursuit.

"Never," Amanda answered, though her attention was fixed on the action in front of her. The deterrent didn't work. The pursuers kept pursing the rider, and they kept firing arrows. Amanda saw one strike the rider in the back and she covered her mouth with one hand. Rebecca seemed unmoved, even as the rider pulled the shaft out of his back without missing a step in his all out gallop.

"They're the same as those that hang in the great hall," Grenhyrde explained as they both watched Rebecca's archers release another volley.

"But why are they flying by the gate?" Amanda asked as the rider finally passed under the gate and entered the safety of the abbey.

"Drop the gate!" Rebecca ordered, and it was done. The archers stayed in place, however, bows notched. The rider looked up at the three on the inner wall just as Rebecca and Amanda felt the buzz: he was an immortal. However, Rebecca didn't appear at all surprised even when Amanda gasped.

"Grenhyrde," Rebecca commanded, and the gardener stepped forward. "Please see to some quarters for our guest."

"Yes, my Lady!" And the gardener disappeared to do as he was bidden, leaving Amanda's last question unanswered.

Confused, Amanda turned to her teacher, who still hadn't taken her eyes off the mysterious immortal. Their guest had dismounted, but was leaning heavily on his horse as various monks and nuns from the abbey began to gather around him. "Rebecca?"

"The pursuers have broken off, Lady Rebecca!"

The Captain of Guards now stood behind them now. Amanda hadn't noticed his approach.

Rebecca nodded, but didn't take her eyes from the sight below. "Good. Have your men stand down, but double the watch. I don't want his 'friends' returning to catch us unaware."

"Yes, my Lady!" A quick bow and he too was gone.

Rebecca finally turned to face her student, who by now was practically thrumming with curiosity and not just a little impatience. "Let's go see to our guest." Her tone clipped, and it only made Amanda the more curious. Rebecca had given sanctuary here to many, mortal and immortals alike. Yet she had never heard her teacher's emotions concerning them show in her voice, for good or ill. Before Amanda could voice the question though, Rebecca turned away and began making her way down to the North Gardens, where the vegetables grew. Amanda had to jog a pace to catch up to her.

"Step back!" Rebecca commanded as she approached. "Give the man some room."

Three monks, two nuns, and four gardeners parted like a sea before the two immortals as they made their way to where the rider stood, still leaning on his horse and muttering something in yet another language Amanda didn't recognize.

"It's you," said the rider as he panted, his voice was raspy.

Amanda barely registered the strange greeting; she was too busy staring at the blood covering the immortal's tunic. Obviously he'd had been hit by more that just the one arrow on his mad dash from wherever to the abbey.

"And you," Rebecca returned in a tone that could have frozen the sun.

The man opened his mouth as if to say something more, except suddenly his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. If he wasn't leaning up against his horse he would have hit the ground hard, but that slowed his descent just enough for Rebecca to move with the reflexes that only immortals possess. She caught him as he fell, and righted him against his horse, allowing the animal to bear most of his weight. She flung his arm about her shoulder and turned to face Amanda.

"Go find where Grenhyrde placed his room, and then come find me."

Amanda nodded, and knowing better than to question Rebecca at a time like this, took off in search of Grenhyrde. The last thing she heard before moving too far out of range was Rebecca's directions to the crowd to go back to their business and that there was nothing more to see.

After learning from a young monk scrubbing the masonry inside the great hall that Grenhyrde was preparing guest chambers in the south wing, Amanda traced her steps back to the entrance to the North Gardens. From there she simply followed the trail of blood the immortal was trailing behind him until she found Rebecca. Her teacher had gathered the immortal up in her strong arms and was carrying him like a child, moving slowly towards the infirmary. This action seemed to fly in the face of the contempt she had shown him earlier and Amanda had to bite her tongue to keep from asking.

"Can't have him reviving in the arms of some unsuspecting mortal now, can we?" Rebecca said suddenly, correctly discerning her student's thoughts.

Amanda nodded. That made sense at least. Of course, it didn't explain the way Rebecca suddenly clutched him tighter when he stirred slightly, whimpering in pain though barely audibly.

Amanda dashed ahead and opened the infirmary doors for her teacher. The old nun who had been reading something in a very old tome looked up when she saw her Lady enter.

"Take a walk, Miranda," Rebecca directed sternly, though a smirk was tugging at her lips. The nun smiled knowingly, rose from her chair, bowed politely, and made her exit.

Rebecca carried the immortal over to a bed and gently eased him onto it. His presence had faded by now… the immortal song inside Amanda's head reflected this change, though still being a student who hadn't encountered many 'dead' immortals, she didn't know what to make of it. Rebecca did, however. She felt for the man's pulse and then sighed heavily.

"Help me get his clothes off."

Amanda nodded and moved towards the immortals feet and began unlacing his boots. From this position at the foot of the bed, Amanda watched as Rebecca deftly removed his soiled outer tunic. His white under-tunic, which aside from being caked in mud and blood, was sporting a tear from where he ripped off the piece he used to signal the abbey.

"Poor bloke's lucky he's immortal," Amanda concluded as she tossed one boot aside.

Rebecca flashed a secretive smile but said nothing. Amanda had his other boot removed by the time Rebecca had cut away the rest of the immortal's under tunic. Amanda then saw the frown on her teacher's face. It didn't take her long to detect the cause of Rebecca's unrest, however.

"Fetch me the surgical box," Rebecca directed, not removing her eyes from the arrowhead protruding from the immortal's side.

That wasn't where they saw him get hit.

Amanda sat and watched, enthralled, as Rebecca used buried the tips of her forceps in the immortal's skin. Apparently when he tried to remove the arrow, the shaft hand splintered and the arrowhead remained in his flesh, not quite removed all the way. Amanda winced in sympathy. It had to be painful.

"What about the other arrow?"

Rebecca gingerly rolled the immortal onto his other side and scrutinized the wound closely. "Looks like he got that one out all right," she concluded . Then Rebecca gently lowered him back down. "Put the arrowhead and the forceps by the basin," she directed, wiping her bloody hands on a rag. "Miranda can wash them later… After she gives him some decent clothes."

Amanda nodded and did what she was told before returning to stand beside her teacher at the side of the bed. Rebecca was gazing down at the still form of the immortal, watching his quickening ripple and heal some of the minor cuts and abrasions to his torso right before their eyes.

"He's too thin," Rebecca noted absently. "I wonder how long he's been running this time."

"Running from whom?" Amanda asked, confused.

Rebecca didn't answer.

"Rebecca, who is he?" Amanda persisted, not liking being ignored. "I know you know him."

"He is Eofrea," Rebecca said at last, but it didn't answer Amanda's question. That was a title, _Horse Lord_, used in the King's court. It wasn't a name. "He's here for sanctuary," her teacher continued. "And I must grant it."

* * *

AN- The King referred to here is Æthelwulf, King of Wessex AD 839-856. A powerful monarch, some historians also name him as king of all England at the time. A more in-depth historical overview will be posted at the end of the last chapter.  



	3. First impressions

_ The Cafe  
__Present Day_

Amanda was attempting to recover from her amused laughter, brought on by the memory of her first glimpses of Methos as the weary and wounded traveler that had to be carried to safety by Rebecca. Oh, if only she knew then what she knew now! Methos for his part, had remained oddly quiet, a contemplative expression on his face very suited to Adam Pierson, except for the almost preternatural stillness that went with it. And the noticeably striking gold eyes.

"Methos?"

Amanda's question brought him at least part-way back from wherever his mind had wandered. "Hmm?"

"Penny for your thoughts," she offered.

Methos shrugged, a resigned gesture. "I never knew she carried me in," he confessed, still seemingly staring off into contemplative nothingness. "I always thought some servant or other brought me."

"Well it's like Rebecca said. We couldn't have you coming back from the dead in the arms of an unsuspecting mortal now, could we?"

"Well, no," Methos conceded. "But most of the mortals in the abbey knew about immortals anyway."

"True…" Amanda shrugged, defeated. "I don't know then."

Methos's contemplative look was then suddenly washed away by one of reminded amusement. "I'll never forget that one nun though," he said with a smile. "She was there when I, er, woke up." At Amanda's questioning look he added, "You know, the one who spent all her time either in the library or the infirmary with an old scroll or tome two inches from her nose?"

Amanda laughed as well, in fond memory. "Sister Miranda," she said with a nod.

"Former sister Miranda," Methos corrected, still very much amused.

"In the entire time that I knew her, she was never seen out of nun's robes," Amanda deflected.

Methos shrugged. "I guess the habit was hard to break?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. Amanda tossed a sugar packet at him for his efforts. "She was a gem though," he said at length, suddenly turning wistful, serious.

"Yeah, she was," Amanda agreed, adopting that same mood.

* * *

_Abbey St. Anne  
__Several hours later_

The sun was just starting to set on the western horizon. It cast long shadows about the room that fell in a kaleidoscope of colors from the stained glass windows. The immortal currently occupying one of the beds, now fully healed and only held in the realm of unconsciousness by the tethers of mortal sleep, finally began to stir. He moaned and stretched his legs, quite pleased to find his muscles only stiff and not tired and sore, as they had been in his previous memories.

Yet with the memory of pain came the memory of events, and the immortal was instantly on alert, rising bolt upright in bed and attempting to discern any threats that his mind was certain were lingering.

"Peace, young master," came a kindly old voice from across the room.

The immortal's head snapped around, and his eyes rested on an elderly nun sitting at a small reading desk, a very large volume in front of her. Her soft grey eyes were regarding him just about as intensely as he was regarding her.

"Where am I?" the immortal asked, his tone guarded and conveying none of the anxiety he felt. "Sister?" he added as an afterthought.

The nun's soft smile held both tolerance and amusement. "Well, you're in the abbey of course! And I'm not a true servant of the Good Lord. Not anymore. It's just Miranda now, but sister if you wish."

Methos filed this information away for later use, his mind attempting to process only one fact: he had made it to the abbey! … Rebecca's abbey. Oh, dear...

"How long was I…" Methos trailed off, not entirely sure how to ask the question without giving anything away.

"Oh, you healed up nicely for an hour or so," Miranda began. "I think you came back around about then, too. You've been lost to a mere mortal sleep for the rest of the afternoon. I expect the evening meal will be served relatively soon."

Methos sat in bed, jaw hanging open, as Miranda informed him of his body's progression. "How do you—"

"Oh I always keep watch over those in the infirmary, whether they be blessed like The Lady or no. I've been right here this whole time."

"You've been watching over me?" Methos asked, incredulous and yet oddly touched.

Miranda smiled warmly. "The Lady and I agree that no one should wake alone."

Methos nodded. "Very considerate of you." Then he took stock of his person, noticing that his clothes had been changed. Now he wore a longer tunic, sufficiently covering him, but no pants. "My clothes?"

"Oh, they've been taken away to be cleaned and mended. You can wear that until you find something more to your liking." The former nun indicated the long tunic he had on now.

Methos nodded, slightly bewildered and overwhelmed at everything, but grateful nonetheless. "Is there somewhere I can freshen up?" he asked finally.

"The Lady has a room all set for you," Miranda informed him. "We just didn't want to move you 'til you woke up. I can take you there if you like."

"Please?"

Miranda stood, and Methos discovered that she wasn't much taller standing than sitting. She was a short, squat woman with large feet and small, stubby hands. Her smile was a kind one though, and there was a sharpness in her twinkling eyes. Methos suspected that there was much more to her than met the eye.

"If you don't mind my asking," Methos spoke up, interrupting the slightly awkward silence (at least for him), that lingered as Miranda led him out of the infirmary and through the halls of the abbey.

"You want to know what a former nun is doing in an abbey?" Miranda supplied.

Methos blushed slightly, feeling sheepish. "It is an odd occurrence," he pointed out.

"Mmm," Miranda pondered. "I suspect it is. Well, my story's a bit on the long side, but to make it brief, I'll tell you that I'd spent the most of my life in the service of the Lord, before finding my way here. To cut straight to the root of my troubles, I guess you could say that I've always been too curious for my own good. Mother Superior always said it would land me into more trouble than I was worth, and the sort version says she was right."

"And the long version?" Methos asked, intrigued.

Miranda shot him a slanted glance, as though sizing him up out of the corner of her eye. Apparently though he measured up, because she continued: "A dowager lived out in the woodlands near our convent, and I took to visiting her on occasion. You know, bringing the message of the Lord to all the fine peoples of the world. Well, this dowager had a love of botany, and she knew all about how to use them: cooking, healing, dyes, teas--you name it and she could do it with those weeds of hers. Finally I asked her to teach me what she knew." Here Miranda sighed. It was a tired sigh, echoing regret. "I guess it's not surprising that word got back to the convent. I didn't make it secret that I had befriended our neighbors, after all. Well, you might have guessed, but they took her for a witch. Before I knew it they'd rallied the good townsfolk, and had themselves a good old-fashioned stoning. I'm pretty sure they'd meant to hang her, but of course she'd tried to run, and so they would have chased after her, thrown things... Made little difference, in the end."

"I'm sorry," Methos murmured, surprised at his own sentiment.

Miranda nodded her appreciation before finishing her tale. "They went easy on me of course, being a Lady of the Cloth. They just kicked me out of the only home I'd ever known, and told me that I couldn't enter heaven. Whoever decided that mortal men have the right to say who can and who can't enter heaven I'll never know. It doesn't say that anywhere in the books of Jesus that I've read."

"After getting kicked out you came to Rebecca?" Methos found it the better part of valor to keep his opinions on religion to himself.

Miranda shrugged one shoulder, rather an awkward gesture for her. "I had no place to go—no one would take in an old woman excommunicated for supposed witchcraft. We'd heard tell though that the survivors from those abbeys and churches in the north—those that had been through the Northman raids—they would come down here, usually by boat, and the Lady would take them in. Well, I had no idea who this "Lady" was, but I knew Saint Anne's. I made my way, sure enough." Then she chuckled at some hidden joke. "Turns out there's all sorts of the Lord's servants doing there duties in this abbey, and no mistake."

Methos remembered the gaggle of monks that had greeted him upon his entrance. "I, ah, I gathered that, yes."

Miranda smiled. "And the Lady even offers sanctuary to the pagans, bless her heart. We've got druids and old-time Celts pass through here to avoid the hangman, or the pyre—God forbid! And they call themselves servants of the Lord."

Methos heard the disdain in those words, the bitterness, and although he shared those sentiments discretion once again stayed his tongue. This was a place of worship, after all, and one whose walls most likely had many, many ears.

Miranda continued: "Now, I know as a servant of the Good Lord, I'm not supposed to be associating with pagans of any sort, but they really are a nice lot, once you get to know them. So much respect for The Lady, and for things that grow, and all God's creatures—even those that would persecute them. And I suppose it makes me hypocritical, wearing these robes even though I've been kicked out, but I figure—whose to stop me? Certainly not the Lady!" And she laughed again. Methos was starting to get the impression that she laughed often at life. How else would she have survived it?

"And I've learned so much from them in the time that I've been here. And since the Lady taught me my letters, I've been writing it all down for her. I write them and I study them, and I work in the infirmary, helping the Lady when peoples come through here needing healing."

Methos flashed a charming grin. "People like me?"

Miranda let out another bark of laughter, as though the that thought was utterly ridiculous. "Oh no, the Lady never lets me linger when one of the Blessed comes through. I didn't go back into the infirmary until she and her young lady left."

"The Blessed?" Methos asked, also sounding as if that idea was the ridiculous one.

"Those like the Lady, blessed by the Lord with the ability to heal themselves. Oh, she does't call it that, of course. But that's what you are, blessed."

Methos shook his head with a slight laugh before the right tumblers clicked and he picked up on the other striking part of that sentence. "You mentioned a young lady?" he prompted, trying his best to sound disinterested but probably not succeeding.

"Oh, that'll be the young Lady Amanda. Lady Rebecca brought her in a few seasons ago; one of the Blessed that needed time to heal. The Lady tells that Miss Amanda is very young, and needs looking after for a while. She's a nice girl. A jittery little thing though. Took her a while to warm up to us, even towards Lady Rebecca."

"I see," said Methos, his tone casual even though his mind was racing. _So Rebecca's taken a new student_.

"Well, here we are, young master." Miranda pushed open a heavy door to reveal a small chamber within. "Dinner should be ready soon. Just follow the crowds when you hear the bell. I'll be in the infirmary if you need anything."

Methos nodded his thanks and Miranda departed, shutting the door behind her.

Once in the room, Methos walked over to the small chest. He lit the oil lamp sitting on top of it, and then put the lamp on small bedside table. The only window in the room faced east, and wasn't letting in much light. Methos threw back the draperies and noted that the sun must have already set behind the western horizon, because on this eastern side, the Evening Star could already be seen, as well as the Mariner's, and a few other of the brighter spots of the heavens. Methos sighed contentedly, surprising himself. Surely the placement of his room was no accident.

Rather than admire the view, Methos sat on the bed, jouncing it a few times. The rope supports were tight, and the feather mattress, while lumpy, should be comfortable enough once beaten. An inspection of the chest revealed a spare blanket for the bed and nothing more. A bed, a chest, a lamp, and a small table: that's all there was to the tiny room. Though, for an abbey…

Then Methos noticed a washbowl and rag on the other side of the bed, placed on the floor so that the stone would keep the water cool. Methos chuckled in amusement before taking the bowl and rag and setting them on the chest. Then he stripped off the long tunic and proceeded to try and scrub off the grime of the past few days. Miranda had been thorough in her earlier washing, and all Methos was doing was erasing the memory of the past few days, more of ritual than of function. At any rate, it made him feel better. He used his reflection in the water in lieu of a looking glass, and splashed water on his hair, slicking it back into place and hoping that he now looked somewhat presentable.

Of course, how presentable can one look in a long tunic and no boots? To Methos's chagrin, Rebecca didn't even leave him a belt. When the dinner bell rang, he would stumble forth amongst the monks and nuns in a glorified dressing gown. Surely this slight humiliation was no more an accident that his spectacular view.

Almost in answer to his musings, the clear peal of a bell could be heard, loudly echoing off the stone walls and ceilings of the abbey. Dinner must be being served in the main hall… wherever that was. Methos left his small chamber in attempts to find the crowd that he was supposed to follow. Alas, he didn't see anyone, and with a tired sigh, Methos began plodding his way down the hallway, barefoot, feeling lost and a little put out.

And of course, dinner meant having to face Rebecca again. They hadn't seen each other in nearly two hundred years. He had no idea what to expect.

Finally Methos picked up the sounds of what could only have been a large gathering of people. He followed the clamor until it led him to what could only have been the Great Hall, and that's when he detected the immortal presence. Of course, the doors were closed. Tired of the games and of trying to guess at Rebecca's mind (and mostly just plain tired), Methos shoved the doors open without knocking. Instantly all conversation stopped and all eyes were upon him.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked flippantly.

"Not at all," came Rebecca's response, and Methos's eyes snapped to the location of the sound of her voice. Rebecca was seated at the center of the head table, in a rather ornate chair. Others whom Methos could only assume held some import in the abbey were seated in chairs to her left and right, and so was the young student Amanda that he recognized from the courtyard. "The Eofrea of the King's Men can take his seat at the head table," Rebecca continued, and that's when Methos noticed the empty chair on the end.

"Thank you, milady," Methos answered with a small, respectable bow. He then walked down the main isle between the two long tables. Apparently in order to maintain some sense of religious propriety, monks were seated on benches at the table on the left, and nuns were on the right. He couldn't help but smirk at this, even as he felt Rebecca's intense gaze upon him as he made his way to the head table, sitting at perpendicular angles ahead of the two long tables to roughly create the pi symbol.

As soon as Methos was seated, a servant appeared seemingly from nowhere and brought over a tray of food. From this tray Methos selected a generous proportion of whatever the dead, cooked, and edible thing was, as well as a nice slice of bread and an entire bunch of grapes. He thanked the servant, who retreated back into the woodwork.

Methos sat for a few moments staring at his food, waiting to receive some signal from Rebecca that it was acceptable to begin eating. None came, and eventually Methos chanced a glance down the table. Rebecca was chatting conversationally in middle Latin with a rather aged looking monk, but Methos was too far away to pick up any threads of conversation. With a sigh and a half shrug, he began his meal.

All through dinner Methos maintained a respectable silence, not even attempting to engage the young man seated next to him in conversation. From his bearing, Methos guessed him to be one of the Abbey's head guards, and he was quite content to attempt to flirt with the young maid seated next to him, who wore all the correct jewelry to signify a Celtic priestess. Rebecca never so much as glanced in his direction. However, he could feel the eyes of her young student upon him constantly. The one time he did glance up and make eye contact with her, she quickly dropped her gaze and returned to eating her apple, biting into it rather noisily. Methos laughed. He could forgive the girl her curiosity for now. What he was really interested in is a private conversation with Rebecca.

* * *

_The cafe  
No time lapse_

"I couldn't help it!" Amanda defended. "You were a complete and utter mystery. _Of course _I was going to be curious!"

"But did you have to be so obvious about it?" Methos countered with amusement. "I was probably equally curious about Rebecca's new student, but did you catch me trying to bore holes into the side of your head?"

"Ha!" Amanda laughed. "Well at least I was willing to look up from my plate once and a while and _try _for eye contact."

"Oh, forgive me if I'm more taken with a decent meal than some kid on the arm of—an acquaintance." Methos caught himself just in time, and bit his lip in chagrin of the near slip.

"Methos?" Amanda asked, all banter and pretense forgotten.

"What?" he asked casually, as though his near slip had never happened.

"Why do you do that?" Amanda asked innocently, no traces of rebuke or sarcasm in her voice.

"Do what?" Methos returned, just as innocent.

"You get yourself on a role and then at the last minute, you change what you were going to say." Amanda informed, her voice betraying her curiosity.

"So I have the ability to censor myself," Methos said, shrugging. "It's a skill I suggest you learn."

Amanda recoiled slightly, stung, but she wasn't about to drop the issue. "You did that a lot over Christmas, too." she pointed out, shrugging off the pointed barb.

"Did what?"

Amanda released an exasperated sigh. "You know, you are so infuriating at times!"

"Was it something I said?"

Amanda shot him a withered look. "That's what I've been trying to talk about." She sighed again, and Methos grinned.

"I guess I'm still the complete and utter mystery."

"And I still can't help but be curious. But at least when Rebecca asked you questions, you would answer her."

"Ah." Methos's eyes were dancing. "But you are not Rebecca."

Amanda dropped her gaze for a moment, shifting uncomfortably. "No. No I'm not."

An awkward silence descended

"You must miss her a lot," Methos mused eventually, his entire persona shifting.

Amanda glanced up slowly to discover the bright green eyes of Adam Pierson resting upon her. Of course, they were so much _more _than Adam Pierson, but they were friendly and inviting nonetheless.

"Now who's boring holes into other people's heads?" she asked quietly, a slight smile dancing on her lips.

"And who's evading questions?" Methos returned.

Amanda smiled almost shyly, blushing slightly. "I do miss her," she answered, the plain and honest truth.

Methos nodded. "So do I, _Amanda_. So do I."

Amanda smiled brightly, indelibly cheered by the statement. "And you've had hundreds of more years with her than I had," she added, inferring only that Methos must have been quite close to Rebecca, as friends of centuries usually are. However, his expression changed then. It became harder, more stone-like. And his eyes turned over to gold.

"Rebecca and I had the same teacher," he said. "I've known her since she was a mere student, like you."

Amanda couldn't restrain her laugh. "Rebecca was _never _like me!" she exclaimed, and Methos smiled in fond memory.

"Oh, you'd be surprised." A small pause where they were both lost in their own thoughts. Then:

"You know, it never even occurred to me to try and contact Adræfan after Rebecca died," said Amanda. "I'm sorry."

"I was with the watchers anyway," Methos answered. "I probably learned of it before you did."

"I didn't even think of it until Marcus called," she added. "He asked me how you took the news."

Methos laughed. "And how is old Marcus these days?"

Amanda shrugged. "Still working for the museum, I suppose. And still mourning his wife." Methos nodded sympathetically. "But I really am sorry Methos." Her voice as sincere as Methos has ever known it.

He shrugged in response. "Don't worry about it," he said dismissively. "You were working on avenging her at the time anyway. That was more important."

Amanda nodded. Then she looked up suddenly, scrutinizing. "Do you think… I dunno, do you think that Rebecca would have been happy, with the way things turned out?"

Methos sat back in his chair, biting back a gasp. Amanda instantly regretted her phrasing, for surely Methos was thinking of the Methuselah stone.

"With MacLeod killing Luthor, I mean," she clarified.

"Oh that," said Methos, his efforts to restrain his thoughts showing visibly on his person. "I think so, Amanda. I think she would have wanted her quickening to go to the boy scout." Amanda laughed at the use of MacLeod's nickname. "But I know you would have rather it been you."

Amanda sighed. "I tried. I couldn't beat him. Duncan had to save my ass again."

"That's the way the game is played," Methos said sagely, for he had no words of comfort of offer her.

Amanda simply nodded. "But is the game played by immortals simply lying down the sword and giving their heads to the enemy?" she added bitterly.

"The Ancient thought so," Methos pointed out, his voice taking on an odd quality that Amanda couldn't place.

"But his quickening _changed _Darius. That worked out for the best! What did Rebecca's quickening do for Luthor?"

"Luthor wasn't worthy of her power, Darius was," said Methos, and Amanda could tell that the truth of the admittance pained him greatly.

"It all seems such a waste," Amanda lamented.

"Not totally," Methos amended. "Rebecca's strength is with Duncan now."

Amanda nearly nodded, knowing that Methos was right. But still… "What good is her strength?" Amanda asked, the bitterness returning. "Look what it did for Luthor."

"She didn't give her strength to Luthor. He only got her quickening. Her strength she gave to Duncan."

Amanda couldn't help but laugh. "Do you really think it works that way?"

Methos merely shrugged and smiled, in that way where none can tell exactly how serious he is. "It's how I sleep at night," he added as an afterthought, and there was truth in the admission.

Silence descended once again as each retreated back to their own thoughts.

"I never took you for one to need assurances before sleep," Amanda said eventually.

"Well what _did _you take me for then?" Methos challenged, his tone serious but amusement lingered in his eyes.

Amanda shrugged. "I dunno," she confessed. "But you were just so damned arrogant the first time we met, and first impressions count for a lot."

"Later impressions can count for more, Leaswene," Methos pointed out. "And I most certainly was _not _arrogant."

"Oh yes you were," Amanda returned, but Methos childishly shook his head.

"Was not."

"Were too."

* * *

_Abbey St. Anne  
__No time lapse_

Slowly but surely, the crowd began to dissipate. Servants came to clear the tables as the monks, nuns, and other denizens departed the great hall in search of evening's entertainment or evening's prayers. Finally it was just Methos, Rebecca, Amanda, and a guard. The guard wasn't seated at the table though. He had moved into a defensive position behind Rebecca's chair.

As if on some hidden cue, both Methos and Rebecca looked down the length of the table at the same time, making eye contact. Rebecca's eyes were cold and scrutinizing, absolutely no emotion betrayed. Methos's first instinct was to look away, but something deep inside decided to deny Rebecca the satisfaction. Instead he nodded to her briefly before rising. Methos intended to seat himself in the free chair next to Rebecca, but the presence of the guard made him think twice about that. Instead he sat a chair away. All this time Rebecca regarded him intently, as did her student. But the student, Amanda, seemed merely curious, if not slightly shy. Indeed, she must be quite young.

"You prepare a fine meal," Methos offered conversationally.

"You'll have to thank Cook for that," said Rebecca, her voice cool and distant.

"I'll make a note of that," Methos returned, sarcasm in his voice as he nodded, nearly mocking.

Rebecca was unmoved. "So what brings the Eofrea of King Æthelwulf to my gates?" she asked, returning the sentiments of Methos's voice. Amanda merely looked on with childlike fascination. "And in such pleasant company."

"How did you know my office?" Methos asked, surprised, and before he could stop himself.

Rebecca showed no emotion at having caught him off his guard. "You wore the emblem of the Horse Lords upon your tunic, trimmed in gold. That is still the king's color of choice, is it not?"

Methos shrugged, admitting defeat. "It is," he conceded. "For eight years I have been in the King's service as a tamer of horses."

"Methos and his horses," Rebecca scoffed, disdain coloring her voice.

Methos wasn't surprised by this reaction, but Amanda was. She glanced quickly between the two immortals, not daring to interrupt but praying that her questions would be answered.

"I take it you approve," Methos said flippantly, not really caring about her opinions in that moment, nor that she had called him _Methos_. At this time he wasn't yet the oldest living immortal, and it wasn't his real name anyway. "And I have left that name behind me."

Rebecca laughed, but there was cruelty in it, the likes of which Amanda had never heard. "Have you now," Rebecca pondered in detached amusement. Then: "Carrock, leave us."

The guard wavered for a second, but the look Rebecca fixed him with left no room for argument, so he nodded curtly and left. Methos had a hunch that he would be waiting just outside the door, however.

"Tell me then, Tamer of Horses, what name I am to call you now?" Rebecca asked after the guard had departed, sarcasm dripping from the words.

"In the King's court I am known as Adræfan," Methos supplied, bowing slightly and awkwardly from his chair, a mocking grin plastered on his face.

Rebecca smirked. "Your name is 'exile'? Well, I suppose that is a fitting title for you."

"You're one to talk," Methos came right back. "Since when does a Mycenean take an Israelite name?"

"Names are not taken, _Methos_, they are given," Rebecca reminded him, her entire mood changing with that one sentence. "You of all people should know that."

Methos couldn't help but break eye contact, looking down and away swiftly.

"And your knowledge of languages is slipping," Rebecca continued. "I had to Latinize the Hebrew name in order to find acceptance among the Christians."

"Since when do you seek the approval of organized religion?" Methos retorted, ignoring the additional insult looked up again.

He saw Rebecca's eyes harden.

"Since I want to avoid having this Sanctuary razed to the ground." Rebecca's voice was positively chilling. "You of all people should know that not even the ones in power can keep the Holy Places safe, but that is my hope."

Methos stifled a wince and dropped his gaze to the floor. _Me of all people…_"It is a good hope, Lady Rebecca," he said after a while, not looking up.

Amanda could have sworn that his voice was sincere, but Rebecca merely laughed. "And what hopes have you, Adræfan Eofrea, that brought you here to me at need?"

Methos took a deep breath and looked up, hoping to meet Rebecca's eyes with something more than coldness and contempt. His naked honesty was met by an unreadable mask, however, and he felt despair begin to claim him.

"The need for sanctuary, Lady Rebecca," he confessed. "I need protection from the court of the King."

Rebecca's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do you know what it is you ask of me?" she asked, her tone guarded. Once again Amanda looked back and forth between them, her mind alit with burning questions and deeply frustrated that she could not speak them.

Methos nodded in response to Rebecca's question. "If you mean to deny me, please tell me now," he said, the air of confidence returning. "So that I may be gone from here by first light."

Amanda watched as her teacher held eye contact with the stranger, neither of them breaking, for many long moments. Then Rebecca cursed in a language Amanda didn't recognize.

"I cannot deny you," Rebecca confessed at last, her entire demeanor softening. She gazed upon him now with the same airs that Amanda saw from her before, when Methos was still dead. Methos sighed visibly in relief, and Rebecca smirked. "I have never turned a soul away," she added. "And I certainly do not intend to start with _you_."

Methos smiled gratefully, but neither he nor Amanda could tell exactly what was meant by that statement.

"You have my thanks, Lady Rebecca," he said sincerely.

"Do not thank me yet," Rebecca cautioned. "Your pursuers will no doubt return here seeking you."

"If they threaten you, I will leave of my own volition," Methos proclaimed with quiet vehemence.

Rebecca seemed honestly surprised by the statement. "Let us hope it does not come to that, Eofrea."

Methos nodded. It seemed that in that moment, all prior tensions and insecurities melted away. Methos smiled openly and warmly at Rebecca, who returned one of her own with equal sincerity. Methos noted how good it was to see her smile like that again.

"My dear Rebecca," he said Methos after a moment, successfully regaining hers and Amanda's attention. "While your consideration and selfless generosity is just as flagrant as I remember, I'm afraid that your propriety has slipped as of late."

"Propriety?" Rebecca asked, confused.

Methos flashed his fallen cherubim smile. "You have yet to introduce me to your student."

* * *

AN- At the time this story's flashback takes place, the Vikings already have a history of raiding northern Christian settlements and plundering abbeys, churches, monasteries, and convents. Miranda infers in this chapter that the survivors of those holy places, for lack of elsewhere to go, have returned by either boat or land to the seat of Anglo Saxon culture, namely Wessex, where St. Anne is located. Rebecca's sanctuary is a welcome haven for these refugees, and many never leave. Also, the Christian conversion is in full swing, but not everyone is Christian yet. Rebecca, older than this new religion, does not exclude pagans the right to sanctuary here. Indeed, she has never turned a soul away. Many pagans remain as well, to escape persecution from the ever-increasing Christian population.  



	4. Nostalgia

_The cafe  
__Present day_

"You see, you were arrogant!"

Methos shook his head. "There's a difference between trying to appear confident, and being arrogant," he pointed out.

"Please," Amanda scoffed dismissively. "Couldn't you have just been yourself?"

Methos raised an eyebrow in silent question.

"Ok, maybe _not_ yourself. But did you have to walk in there like you owned the place?"

Methos laughed outright. "I most certainly _did not_ act like I owned the place!" he negated, more amused than offended. "As I said, I was merely trying to appear... confident... in front of Rebecca."

"So your arrogance was just a poker face then?"

"Yes—I mean, no, I—" Methos released a heavy, exasperated sigh and brought his fingers to his temples. Amanda sat back, grinning in satisfaction at having outplayed the old man. "You shouldn't have changed," Methos said at length, still bracing his head in his hands as though he had a terrible headache.

Amanda blinked, surprised. "Changed?"

"You were more polite back then."

"Polite?" she questioned, once again surprised. "I hardly said a word." This time Methos flashed _her_ a self-satisfied grin. "Oh, you…" Amanda scowled. Methos was content that they were now even. "Besides," Amanda began, finally exchanging the scowl for a slight smirk. "Why would I interrupt the two of you? I was too busy watching the show!"

"Well I'm glad you found us amusing," said Methos with an almost-mocking tone.

"Oh it wasn't you," Amanda corrected with an almost-condescending tone. "I'd never seen Rebecca like that before."

That got Methos's attention. "What do you mean?"

"Whenever we got… a visitor… well, she was genuinely concerned for the mortals, but she was also reserved, too. I'd never seen her be so—"

"Harsh?"

"Emotional." A pause of thick silence. Then: "And the immortals, well, the only one she knew who came through was Marcus, and he only stayed for a night. They greeted each other like old friends, stayed up all night talking, and then he left the next day."

"Are you sure they were talking?" Methos interjected, his eyes dancing.

"I—" Amanda stopped mid thought and a blush crept into her cheeks. Methos laughed.

"_Anyway_," Amanda began again, banishing the thoughts and images that sprung to mind at Methos's ill comment. "The only other immortal to come through before you was someone she didn't know. She was the exact same way with this guy as she was with the mortals: formal and reserved, but she did remind him of how this was holy ground…"

"Ah Rebecca, the consummate host."

"Exactly!" Amanda agreed. "He was gone in a few days and I haven't seen him since."

"Fascinating," Methos said dismissively, wondering if Amanda had a point to all of this.

"But you…" she continued; or at least, attempted to continue. "I don't know, with you she was different."

Methos shrugged, not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"She was… contemplative, in a way, and more expressive than I'd ever seen her," Amanda finished, her expression thoughtful.

"How so?" Methos asked, effectively masking his concern with curiosity.

"Well, when I was training with her, she was, well, I won't say 'happy' per se, but there was a lightness about her. She was very reserved, of course, and formal to a fault, but that was only for the public's benefit I think. There was joy in there too."

"That sounds like Rebecca," Methos agreed, almost wistfully.

"Yeah…" Amanda nodded, also caught up in memory. "But then you came, and… I can't really describe it, but she was different."

"Different how?" he asked, his tone guarded.

Amanda took a considerable amount of time as she thought about how best to answer this. "The light was dimmed."

* * *

_The Abbey  
__As Rebecca and Amanda are leaving the infirmary_

"You may have the rest of the afternoon to yourself, Amanda," said Rebecca, unexpectedly breaking the silence. The two immortals were strolling down the corridor, towards what Amanda had just assumed to be the tower where they practice swordplay. Rebecca had been just about as forthcoming as always, but Amanda wasn't worried. The rest of her questions would be answered when the mysterious immortal awoke. For right now, she was anxious to avenge the memory of a sore bottom.

"You mean, no swords?" she asked hesitantly.

Rebecca smiled a cryptic smile. "No swords."

"But, why not? Have I done something wrong?"

Rebecca stopped and turned fully to face her student, seeing mostly confusion in her dark eyes. Rebecca gave a reassuring smile. "Of course not."

"Well what then?" Once placated, Amanda is quick to become assertive once more.

Rebecca stifled a small laugh. "I wouldn't be a good opponent for you right now," she explained, and then she began walking again.

"Why not?"

Rebecca smirked. "That is something you will understand when you are older."

"I'm past twenty nine summers!" Amanda stated indignantly.

Rebecca's smirk softened into a smile. "You're immortal now, Amanda. In time you'll stop counting time as mortals do."

Amanda frowned in thought. "Well, how will I count, then?" She had to jog slightly to catch back up to Rebecca, for in her musings she had lagged behind.

Rebecca seemed to give the matter serious thought. "If you stay in Wessex, perhaps you'll be content to count by kings. If you move to Europe, mayhap by popes then."

Once again Amanda paused, thoughtful. "Why would I want to leave Wessex?" she asked, truly not understanding.

Rebecca smiled again, a gentle, knowing smile. "Why indeed."

Amanda was still confused. "Wait," she called out, once again finding herself tailing behind. "Are you saying that I should leave?"

Rebecca couldn't help but laugh. It was a lighthearted laugh though, the sound of tinkling bells. She stopped once more and turned to Amanda, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Rebecca was taller, and she looked down into the questioning eyes of her student.

"When you are ready, you may go wherever you wish," she said, and Amanda was certain the statement was meant to be taken at face value.

"What if I don't wish to go?" Amanda asked, her voice soft and full of insecurity.

Rebecca's heart went out to the girl. "Amanda," she said, in the tone she saved for 'teacher moments,' full of quiet authority.

Amanda dutifully looked up.

"This will always be your home, should you wish it to be," Rebecca stated, softly yet firmly. "But there will come a time when you'll want to leave these walls, to journey beyond these borders. Indeed, in the end it should be so. Immortals cannot stay in one place forever."

Amanda was reassured by this, as she was always reassured by Rebecca's words. It seemed to her though, that Rebecca was saddened for some reason, after having said this.

"Does the thought make you sad?" she asked candidly, wanting to know what ill mood had suddenly besieged her teacher.

Rebecca seemed taken aback, as though it surprised her that Amanda had read her emotions so easily. "Yes," she admitted, and Amanda was surprised at the admission as well. Before she could ask, Rebecca clarified. "Sometimes I wish that everything could stay the same. It's difficult sometimes when things change, and when people go their separate ways. You'll understand all of this when you're older, Amanda. And that, really, is what saddens me the most." With that, Rebecca turned and resumed walking again.

Yet again, Amanda jogged to catch up. "It makes you sad that I'll learn things?" she asked, slightly disbelieving.

If Rebecca was exasperated by all these questions she never let on. "You need to learn these things, Amanda. That's part of the reason immortals need teachers. Anyone can teach you to wield a blade, but that is just mere survival. You must be taught to _live_, Amanda."

"Is that why you have me learning about book and things?"

"Partially," Rebecca answered cryptically. When she spoke no more, Amanda got the impression that the matter was meant to drop. However, Amanda wasn't one to give up so easily.

"You still haven't told me why all this makes you sad."

Rebecca stopped again, and turned to face her student. Amanda expected a rebuke, or another cryptic evasion meant to change the subject. Instead she reached out, lovingly and yet tentatively, and ran gentle fingers through Amanda's long mahogany tresses—just enough to brush the strands back out of her student's questioning face. This was one of Rebecca's softer, maternal moments, as Amanda would come to realize later.

"I am sad for the world we live in, Amanda; for the world that I must one day send you out to meet head on."

Amanda took a clandestine glance to be sure that they were alone in the hallway. "You mean, the world of dueling and beheading and living forever?" she asked, her voice a rough whisper.

Rebecca laughed slightly, and bells tinkled once more. "Those things are your life now," she said sagely. "But to answer your question, I am sad that the world beyond our doors does not stand still."

"But, why should that make you sad?" Amanda asked, more from disbelief than confusion now.

"Because one day, it will make you sad too," Rebecca replied. Then she turned and started walking again.

"And all this is something I'll understand when I'm older?" Amanda asked, still trying to comprehend. At least this time she wasn't left behind in her musings.

"Unfortunately," was Rebecca's lament. Then the hallway came to an end, and with a small smile for her student, the teacher turned right, headed most likely for the library.

Amanda didn't feel like being around books right now. It was still bright out; she wanted to be outside! Amanda turned left, headed for the door to the gardens.

* * *

_The cafe  
__Present day_

Amanda finished her tale to a very introspective-looking Methos. That was alright, because she didn't really feel like talking about the feelings associated with her memories right now. A thick yet oddly comfortable silence hung in the air.

"Did you come to understand?" Methos asked, the sudden sound of his voice startling Amanda.

"Hum?"

"Did you ever come to understand what made Rebecca sad that day?" he asked, and as she studied him Amanda thought he looked oddly hopeful.

"Well, if you mean did I come to find out that as the world marches merrily along, changing things I thought were immutable and making everyone and everything I love grow old and die, then yeah I think I figured that part out." Amanda's bitter tone surprised her, as did the realization that she didn't much care in that moment.

Her words seemed to roll off Methos's back like so much water; if it affected him, he did not let on. Finally he nodded and sighed, and it seemed to him there was relief in it.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

Methos smiled an odd smile. "That is the way of the world, Amanda. We all learn that if we live long enough. What I meant was, did you learn _why_ Rebecca thought of it _that day_, and why _that_ made her sad, but apparently you did not."

Amanda's foul mood was chased away by a rush of curiosity. "What do you mean? The day had something to do with it?"

"If it is a lesson she did not teach, then I won't be the one to share it," Methos said with finality. He tensed, as though making ready to stand.

"Well could you give me a hint?" Amanda asked, pleading slightly in an exasperated way. She expected a smirk and a deflective comment from the old man, and so the haunted look that flashed through his eyes surprised her. "Methos, what did the day have to do with anything?"

Finally Methos acquiesced. He relaxed a bit, and offered that smirk. "Was the Battle of Hastings fought on a Tuesday?"

Amanda blinked. "What?"

Methos's smirk broadened into an irritating grin. "You heard me. Was the Battle of Hastings fought on a Tuesday?"

Amanda stared blankly for a few minutes, processing what seemed to be complete and utter randomness in the midst of (what she thought was) their rather serious discussion.

"You don't remember, do you," Methos followed up as soon as Amanda seemed to regain control of her facial expressions.

"Who knows," she said dismissively, wanting to know the point. "It was a long time ago."

Methos's grin remained fixed in place. "And you forgot the trivial details of it," he said smugly, "in favor of remembering the more important events of the day."

Amanda glared at him for several seconds before the right tumblers clicked and his analogy made sense. "It wasn't the _day_," she said in realization, consciously avoiding looking at Methos's face.

"It was the fact that I arrived," Methos concluded, his dejected tone causing Amanda's head to snap in his direction. "It could have been that day or a hundred years from it. It didn't matter."

Amanda's impatience and aggravation faded as she regarded Methos in that moment. "I saw two, and I saw two, and there was a four there but I never put in the addition signs…" she said, mostly to herself. "I knew that she was acting differently because of you… of what you represented, or reminded her of, or something like that. It never occurred to me that those were sad things."

"Oh, the innocence of youth," Methos said fondly. It seemed as though he was content to let the matter drop, but Amanda wasn't about to let him. Not after getting her all interested in the story behind his words and analogies.

"So what was so depressing about your arrival?" she pressed, sounding every bit the innocent he had just accused her of once being.

Methos blinked slowly, as though weighing whether or not to answer her, or how. "We go back a long way…" he offered cryptically. Then, almost a whisper: "Went."

Amanda nodded. "Yeah, and Duncan and I go back a long way, but that's only three hundred and fifty years."

Methos chuckled. "It was a bit longer than that."

"How much longer?"

Methos paused to do the math. "Nearly thirteen times that," he said, first sounding unsure, but then nodding.

Amanda's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Thirteen times!"

Methos half shrugged. "Give or take."

"Then that would make Rebecca—"

"Forty-four hundred… and twelve."

Amanda sat stunned for a few minutes. Methos seemed to either not care, or not notice. Probably the latter, as he appeared lost in his own thoughts at the moment.

"I never knew…"

Methos smiled, but this time it was tinged with sadness. "Not many did," he said heavily, and Amanda got the point. "Not even the watchers." Oh yeah. She got it crystal-clear and nodded gravely.

"I know you two had the same teacher," Amanda said suddenly. Methos turned to her in surprise. "I guess it makes sense that you would have known her for most of her life."

Memory and emotion flooded Methos's senses and he bit back a gasp. Finally he nodded. "She was still a student when I first knew her," he said at last, finally regaining control of his own mind.

Amanda paused to note the symmetry as she contemplated the implications of this. "Thirty-two hundred years," she said at last, almost to herself. "Rebecca was thirty-two hundred when I met her."

Methos nodded, smiling slightly. "Something like that," he said dismissively.

Amanda then turned to him, sharply, grasping at a sudden thought. "And in all that time, nothing happened to make her memories of you happy?" she asked, almost incredulously. "Thirty-two hundred years and she remembers you sadly?"

Though he didn't recoil, Methos looked verily like he had just been slapped. Amanda thought of apologizing for her statement, but she needed to know the answer. Why had lain between her teacher and the world's oldest immortal?

"There were happy memories too," Methos conceded at last.

"But not enough?"

Methos laughed bitterly. "Oh no, there were plenty of happy memories."

"Then why the sadness?" Amanda pressed, mostly confused.

"Why was Rebecca sad?" Methos countered, evading her question.

Amanda released an exasperated sigh as she answered. "Because of what you reminded her of. I want to know what that was."

Methos laughed, this time not as bitter. "No, that's what made her sad, not why she was sad."

Amanda blinked. "But that's the same thing."

"And that is why you do not have your answer."

Amanda sat fuming, mentally counting to ten, in French. "Then why don't you explain to me the difference?" she demanded, enunciating every word.

Methos was unfazed, and simply laughed. "You've already answered it," he pointed out, his amusement only furthering Amanda's anger. "When you asked Rebecca what made her sad."

Amanda was reminded of the conversation with her teacher, and she twitched slightly, memory cutting a vicious swath through the tension of her anger. "The past," she said tiredly.

"And how nothing is immutable, and things die… people."

Amanda took a few moments to actually think about all the things they had said. If the answer was right there in front of her, then damn it why couldn't she see it! "Rebecca was sad because you remind her of everything that was, and how things have changed, and people are dead and nothing is the same. It's not you specifically. You're just the anachronism that served that purpose."

Methos sighed heavily, his only indication that she had guessed correctly. Her anger seemed to leave her then, and Amanda was left with, well not realization per se, but with an increased understanding of her first time meeting Methos. Glancing in his direction, he seemed on the precipice of memory once again. Amanda did not want its tendrils to up and claim him.

"I don't see why you couldn't have just said so in the first place," she said, distracting him from wherever he was.

Methos blinked in surprise, the spell seemingly having passed. "I thought I did," he said with Adam Pierson's innocent charm.

Amanda smirked. "Sure you did," she agreed sarcastically.

Methos half shrugged, not bothering with a verbal reply. Not wanting silence to descend, Amanda strove to keep the conversation alive. She asked the first question that came to mind.

"Did she seem sad to you?"

Methos sat back in his chair, trying to decide how best to answer this. "Nostalgic perhaps," he said, the shrug affected in his voice. "But no more or less sad than other times." He didn't bother to add that it was because she kept her softer emotions skillfully hidden from him so he had to real way to judge.

* * *

_The Abbey  
__Many hours after dinner_

Rebecca stood on the top of the bell tower, the highest part of her abbey. Her gaze was fixed westward across the fields and distant forests, turned to silvery greens and browns in the brilliant starlight of the new moon.

"I thought I would find you here."

Rebecca had heard him coming and so didn't start at the sound of his voice. He had made no move to sneak up on her anyway. Methos came up from the trapdoor that led to the topmost roof of the bell tower and left the trap opened before coming to stand off to her left a few paces, and a pace behind. Rebecca gave no answer, but he could tell by her body language that she was well aware of his presence. Whether or not he was accepted was another question, but at least he hadn't yet been rejected.

"The stars are warm tonight," he said conversationally. Rebecca nodded almost imperceptibly before glancing heavenward. "They had been so cold of late," he added, his voice taking on a more distant quality.

"Cold stars provide little comfort," said Rebecca, switching into Latin.

Methos smirked. "Like winter stars, but not so far away," he added, also switching tongues.

"They haven't shown this brightly in quite a while."

Then Rebecca sighed and turned to face him then. Methos found that he could not quite meet her gaze.

"Do you think it means anything?" he asked, mentally picking out the constellations to keep himself from glancing at Rebecca.

"Perhaps the Star-Kindler is happy," Rebecca mused.

Methos turned, and saw a wan smile grace her timeless face, yet it did not reach her eyes.

"Then somewhere in the world, this was a good day," he said, for lack of anything better.

"Somewhere," she echoed before turning from him and gliding over to the edge of the tower. A small wall, barely knee-high, was all that would prevent someone from plummeting to their death.

"That's not very safe," Methos pointed out, referring to the wall. He sensed rather than saw Rebecca's smile gently in amusement.

"The Church decrees it so," she informed him. "A fortified tower is unbecoming for a place of refuge and worship."

"And a high wall could cover archers," Methos concluded naturally. Then, after a brief pause: "Yet they don't object to the outer wall or the guards you have stationed there. A lookout posted atop the tower would make little difference."

"Still the strategist, Methos?" Rebecca asked, her tone somewhere between deathly cold and warmly sarcastic as she switched back into Anglo-Saxon.

Methos chose not to answer that, clinging instead to stubborn silence.

Rebecca sighed. "It makes the clergy happy, keeping us less imposing as a fortress. They say that the Lord has no use for swords and arrows."

Methos snorted. "Since when has God protected anyone?" he asked with soft incredulousness. "It's not faith that will defend this Sanctuary when evil comes, but men. With swords and arrows."

Rebecca turned sharply then, facing him once more. Methos instinctively reached out, fearing that in her haste Rebecca would lose her balance and tumble over the wall. She did not however, and Methos was stuck, mouth agape and hand outstretched when Rebecca's fierce and penetrating gaze fell on him.

"And you have brought evil to my doorstep again, _brother_," Rebecca spat, suddenly switching to the ancient tongue. "Once more, you come before an army."

"You speak the literal truth, _sister_," Methos answered slowly, following her into the ancient tongue. It sounded natural spilling from his lips, despite the fact that he hadn't spoken it in centuries. "And I think you do so only to harm me."

Rebecca laughed a cruel, merciless laugh. "I intended only to point out symmetry, dear brother," she said in a light and mocking way. "If my words caused harm then it is only truth that pains you."

Methos sighed and hung his head briefly. "Perhaps truth," he conceded. "More likely memory."

Rebecca's tensed noticeably despite her long robes. She clenched both fists and then whirled around again, turning her back to him and returned her gaze across the horizon.

Methos decided to take a chance. "Which would you prefer?"

A long, slow sigh, most likely deliberate, and the tension eased from Rebecca's form. She simply stood now, and Methos knew that she would not be able to answer his question.

"I would prefer to not be haunted by the past," she confessed, her voice heavy with sadness and regret.

Methos took a few paces towards her. "You must know that I want the same thing."

Another sigh and Rebecca eased herself down so that she was sitting on the wall. She swung her feet around so that they were dangling off the edge. Her hands were braced beside her, but should Methos have decided to shove, she would have been thrown from the wall to plummet towards mortal death. Despite it all, she still trusted him with her life.

"How many more centuries… millennia… before we can forget?" she asked, and it seemed to him in that moment she was older even than he was.

"I wish I knew," he said on the tails of a sigh. In the pause that followed he dared to walk a few paces closer. He now stood within arms reach of where she sat. If Rebecca sensed his movements she didn't let on. "But speaking plainly, I do not wish to forget."

Rebecca turned her head, catching him just barely in her backwards glance. Methos moved to sit beside her, still half an arm apart. Rebecca took advantage of the pause.

"So you still carry the guilt," she stated, her voice unreadable.

Methos churned a few responses around in his mind. "Always, little sister. Always."

She seemed to accept this, barely nodding. Her gaze had long since returned to the horizon, and Methos joined her in this. "And to forget what I was would change who I am."

Rebecca smirked slightly. "You like who you are?"

"I have the benefit of many mistakes to learn from."

Rebecca seemed to neither agree nor disagree. She remained staring off into the distance, her thoughts far away. "I have missed you," she confessed. It was a neutral statement, not emphasized nor thrown away. Almost as though she were speaking to herself.

Almost.

Then a pause.

"But have you forgiven me?"

Silence.

After a time, Methos sighed dejectedly. After all, what did he expect? "This really is a beautiful country," he offered at length, willing to say anything to end the damning silence they were in.

Rebecca merely nodded. "Aye," she agreed. "That it is."

"You will keep it safe." Quiet assurance in his voice.

Once more Rebecca nodded. "As safe as I can, for as long as I can."

They lapsed into silence once again, this time though it was infinitely more comfortable. The two of them stayed there on the wall the rest of the night, close enough to reach out and touch the other, yet hands remaining still, and never once breaking the silence. They were both content upon the brink, neither opposing nor opposed, to watch the stars light up the fields and forests below, until the Morning Star rose in the western sky, and false dawn threatened to chase the stars from view.

* * *

_The Cafe  
__Present day_

"Nostalgic is a good way to put it," Amanda observed after a time. Methos sighed heavily, ripping himself from the memories that were threatening to engulf him once more. "And you just sat there until morning?"

"I left when the Morning Star arose," Methos said dully. "I don't know how long Rebecca stayed."

Amanda's glance shifted as she tried to recollect. Finally she shook her head. "I didn't see her until the following afternoon," she said. "Sword practice."

Methos laughed out loud. "Ah yes," he said in fond memory, a genuine smile lighting his features.

Amanda blushed. "I had only been training a little over a year," she insisted in her defense. "And living on holy ground, there was no rush."

"It's ok," Methos reassured, though his voice betrayed him. "A lot of us are slow learners at first."

Amanda shot him a death glare. "Well it didn't help that Rebecca used moves on me that I'd never seen," she pouted. "I didn't even know human beings could _do_ that!"

Methos only laughed harder. "Nostalgia," he concluded with a faint shake of the head.

Amanda glared again, but then her expression softened into one of contemplation. "It was after that disastrous match that I insisted she teach me gymnastics, too."

Methos grinned. "And the rest, as they say, is history."

* * *

AN- Unless otherwise stated, the language of the flashback time is Anglo-Saxon, pre-Norman influence. 


	5. Historically speaking

_The café  
__Present day_

"Speaking of history," Amanda interjected. "What exactly happened between you and the king that caused such a fuss?"

Methos sat back in his chair, sighing heavily. "You don't know?"

Amanda shook her head. "Rebecca kept me far away from any political discussions until almost the very end of my stay with her. I think it was part of her efforts to keep me innocent."

Methos laughed aloud. "Not that it worked, Leaswene."

Amanda huffed. "And what would you know about innocence of mind, Adræfan?" she countered.

Methos tried to laugh with her, but the barb still stung. What, indeed. Suddenly his laughter ceased. "Enough to be grateful that Rebecca tried to keep you sheltered for as long as possible."

Amanda's retort died in her throat when she realized the sincerity in Methos's statement. Then she sighed. "It couldn't have lasted forever."

Methos nodded. "Nothing lasts forever, Amanda. Not even immortality."

Amanda's gaze fell to the table as the weight of his words settled in around them, layered among their silences. Not surprisingly though, Amanda was the first to shake herself free.

"Well since I'm _far_ from innocent," she intoned with innuendo, "perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me exactly what happened back at the abbey?"

That startled a laugh out of Methos, a true, genuine laugh that set Amanda smiling in return.

"As you wish, Leaswene."

* * *

_The Abbey__  
The following morning_

Methos had managed to find his way back to his chambers by the light of the dying stars and intruding false dawn. He was not so presumptuous as to stay out there until Rebecca herself declared when the night was over. He would let her decide that on her own. Besides, he was a lot more tired than he would have admitted.

When he awoke again, bright sunlight was streaming through his eastern window. He blinked heavily and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, muttering obscenities in a few forgotten tongues as he drew himself up to a sitting position. Methos dejectedly realized that the downside to having the highly coveted east-facing window was the fact that on mornings like these it would be impossible for him to get back to sleep. There was nothing for it, and so with a few more archaic curses, Methos swung his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself to standing.

The first thing he noticed was that someone had refilled his wash basin at some point in the night, most likely before he came to bed or else he would have caught the person in the attempt. Methos made generous use of the cold water to scrub himself down, lastly dribbling some across his fingers so that he could attempt to work most of the tangles from his hair. It tended to get rather unruly at its current length, and he regretted not having a hairbrush on hand.

His morning routine finished, Methos took greater stock of the shadows in his room and realized that the sun had yet to reach its zenith. This boded well for his chances of making the noontide meal, if indeed Rebecca served one. He was on his way out the door, not really caring that all he had to his name at current were the faded nighttime leggings and tunic he had been gifted earlier, when on a whim he decided to open the trunk. What he saw there surprised him. Robes! Rebecca had gifted him with robes! Reverently Methos pulled the garments free and inspected them. Much to his surprise, the crest of the Eofrea had been removed from his old tunic and then transplanted to these robes. The colors were dark forest green and a faded bronze and he couldn't help but feel a sense of love had come with the gesture, just as he did when he noticed his window.

First he pulled on a fresh under-tunic. It was made of a soft silk and Methos was reminded of just why he had sought Rebecca's aid. That being laced properly, he pulled the long bronze outer tunic over his head. That's when he discovered that his belt had been salvaged and thoroughly cleaned. With a shake of his head he fastened the belt around his midsection, taking the time to secure his coffer (which was sadly empty) and his dagger. Rebecca would certainly remember that he always wore one, so he felt no danger for it. That being done, Methos pulled the green robes over his head on top of the tunic. They covered him from head to toe and hung just a bit too long down his arms, but they fit properly across his chest so that the loose fastener, a simple broach of bronze encasing a jewel of green glass, hung in front of the tunic in exactly the right spot, leaving the bronze of the tunic showing just enough down his front as the rest of him was enveloped by green.

Methos turned around a few times, inspecting himself. Fine bronze embroidery shone out of the green, but in such a way that only light reflecting at the proper angle would reveal it. He couldn't wait to see what starlight did to them.

Methos couldn't help but smile, knowing that Rebecca had personally selected these garments. If he truly wanted to lose himself in fantasy, then he would imagine that Rebecca had had these garments tailored personally for him long before she even knew he was coming. Only the device of the horse lords looked slightly out of place, but that was only to his biased eyes that were currently torn between waking reality and long-forgotten memory.

Finally he declared himself ready to face the day. Of course, his hair could use a thorough brushing, and a nice mint leaf would take care of the wretchedness that he suspected of his breath, and then of course it was impossible to look entirely regal without any boots, but it would have to do. With a sigh he realized the most probable reason Rebecca had chosen these garments for him to wear: he was here on a political matter, and a meeting between Rebecca and her advisors should be commencing in the near future.

Methos departed his chambers with an added air of dignity and relished the long-forgotten sensations that accompany the swish of robes. How long _had_ it been? Methos chuckled to himself, truly allowing his mood to elevate as he roamed to corridors of the abbey.

"Excuse me, milord?"

Methos turned sharply and nearly knocked a young boy off his feet. He had been so distracted that he failed to notice the boy come up behind him. The boy, who looked like he'd barely reached his first shave, jumped gracefully out of the way.

Methos backed off several paces and smoothed his robes. "Er, yes?"

"Milord, the Lady is asking for you," said the boy, bowing slightly. "She is in the library."

"Thank you…"

The boy grinned. "Grenhyrde, milord."

Methos smiled congenially. "Thank you, Grenhyrde."

The boy practically beamed before bowing quickly and turning on his heels. Methos watched him practically skip down the corridor. Smiling to himself, Methos turned back around, intent on seeking out Rebecca. That's when he realized that he had no clue where the library was.

Twenty or so minutes later Methos found the library, by the advantage of sensing another immortal. He found its large double doors hung opened, and a cool breeze hit head on as it wafted in through the open double doors that lead to a small balcony directly across from him. This balcony was only a few paces deep, and cascading curtains of white lace swayed in the breeze, partitioning off the balcony like a screen. The only piece of furniture on the balcony was an antique settee, and that's where Rebecca was seated. She too wore robes, hers of faded blue and pale grey. Her hair framed her face in long flowing tresses for she didn't tie it back, even to ease her perusal of some ancient tome that was resting in her lap. Rebecca looked up at him as he entered, and seemingly on cue a breeze blew in and rustled the lace, catching Rebecca's hair just so and effectively stealing Methos's breath away.

"And lo! There was then light in dark places…" he murmured, quoting, having slipped into the ancient tongue.

Rebecca's face wore a serene mask as she placed the tome aside and stood. Once again she seemed to tread on air as she approached, drawing back the lace curtains and coming to stand inside the library proper. "Some things do not change, brother," she said, no emotion discernable on her countenance when she spoke in that same tongue as she inspected and then admired how Methos fit in the robes she'd given him.

"Some things, no," Methos agreed.

"The needlework is not the finest, but I never truly had the talent for it," Rebecca said, her eyes roaming over the delicate bronze stitching in the green robes.

Methos allowed himself a small smile. "If you have personally fashioned these garments for me, then I am truly blessed."

Rebecca's expression softened slightly before becoming serene again as the barriers were reconstructed. "It was an indulgence on my part," she confessed. "There are dark times ahead. I wanted a happier memory amongst them."

"You're so sure they will be dark?"

Rebecca's serenity remained unbroken, even as she turned from him and walked back over to the balcony. Her steps were discernable now, as there seemed to be a weight about her. She moved through the break in the curtains as they blew apart and stood finally in front of the balcony railing and used her hands to brace herself upon it. Methos finally moved to join her, but remained on the other side of the draping lace.

"The Northmen have not ceased their attacks," she explained to the vista splayed out before them. "The flood of refugees from the northern realms of the isle have increased. Many settle here, believing that the magic of the Lady will protect them."

The biting tone she used sounded so foreign to him. It grated in Methos's ears. "You have a thriving township," he conceded at length.

"I preside over this abbey. Our numbers aren't so great as to rival the Old Times, but the surrounding villages all dwell under the arm of my protection, which seems to try and grow longer by the year. I do not know how much longer I can keep them safe."

"You are not responsible for the safety of the nation," Methos reminded her, quiet authority in his voice and, perhaps, a touch of experience.

Rebecca smirked slightly. "The Vikings attack from the North, the Danes from the east. This kingdom was once united against such threats, but our enemies have proven too great a force for our alliances. Wars are excellent excuses to cast treaties asunder."

"King Egbert wanted a coalition," Methos countered. "Not a united kingdom."

Rebecca laughed at that. "Yet he did not seem to protest when they all swore fealty to him," she pointed out. "He was not prepared for the responsibility that comes with such a rule."

Methos sighed, unable to refute the point. "And you weren't prepared to suddenly have the entire island as your protectorate?" he offered, knowingly overbold.

Rebecca stiffened at his words until finally she released a controlled sigh, and the tension drained from her frame like so much water. "Wessex is safe still," she said at length. "I have ensured it so. Though I am not sure for how long our peaceful existence here can remain. It will not last forever, and already I see fewer days before us than are behind."

Methos hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. "It must have been hard for you, watching the other kingdoms fall."

Rebecca was silent for a long moment, and Methos could tell she was considering exactly how much of herself would be to revealed in her answer. "What you see here is the last refuge in the storm," she said, her voice awash in shades of sadness. "We do not speak of it outside closed doors, but Wessex stands alone."

Methos bowed his head, shoulders stooping beneath the weight of truth. Indeed, he had already surmised this conclusion long ago from his position in the King's court. When at last he spoke, his words were both candid and utterly true. "Your allied kings are dead or dispossessed. Nordic governments are what we deal with now, even in our own neighboring lands. The king doesn't know for how much longer he can keep his own people safe and ignorant of such changes. They believe we are all still one, and that the troubles of the borders do not affect them here, but they don't know how close those borders are."

Rebecca sighed a long breath and then finally turned to face him. Their eyes met through the lacework barrier between them, and as the wind flared again it seemed the immortal song rose approvingly in crescendo.

"Æthelwulf grows weary of the proxy governments," she confessed. "He is a good king and not as greedy as his father was. He knew that the union his father created was not meant to last. When Egbert died, the alliances stood upon a razor's edge, and the torrent of invasion may have fallen as a gentle breeze, for the effect was the same. Æthelwulf inherited a crumbling kingdom, and during his reign he has watched it slip further and further from his grasp."

Methos couldn't help the smirk that slid across his face. "Your words would sound like treason, Lady, were they not so true."

Rebecca dipped her head in acknowledgement. Then she blinked slowly, and Methos plainly saw the weight of the responsibility that weighed on her. It saddened him. When she spoke again there was a bitter edge in her voice. "For many years I had his ear, like his father and grandfathers before him. I see him grow more desperate as the years weigh further upon him. He looks to me to work some sort of magic, cast some sort of protective spell to shield all of Wessex from its immanent fate."

Methos nodded in rueful agreement. "Would that we could. If only our immortality lent us that kind of power."

Rebecca smiled wanly, but it disappeared back into serenity so quickly that Methos wasn't sure if he had seen correctly.

"I do what I can," Rebecca acknowledged. "But the White Lady of Wessex is merely immortal. I am not an oracle or a priestess or God, or whatever else they wish me to be. I am a counselor only, a protector of refugees and lost children."

"You are far more than that," Methos offered with brotherly affection.

"I am not what they need me to be," Rebecca confessed. "What they imagine me to be." Then, with a slight laugh: "The pagans think I am their Goddess incarnate, the druids believe I control the elements, but both sense the power of Sanctuary here."

"And the Christians are more than willing to make you a saint."

That startled Rebecca. "I—" but she bit off whatever thought that was, redirecting her thoughts. "The Roman Church would dispose of me in a heartbeat if it weren't for the influence of the King, whom they need as an ally if their crusade of conversion is to continue."

Methos suddenly felt a sickening lurch to his stomach. "And how long will the King continue to grant you immunity?"

Rebecca smiled sadly, detecting the trend of his thoughts. "I have no fears of losing his friendship," she stated firmly. "But Æthelwulf is a king with a nation to look after. If ever he perceives a threat to that nation…"

Methos didn't need her to finish, and was actually quite glad that she too was aware of this and allowed her voice to trail off, leaving thoughts unsaid. "I should not have come to you," he concluded.

Rebecca didn't refute the statement. Finally Methos couldn't bear the silence.

"What are you going to do?"

Rebecca's face remained impassive as she seemed to contemplate this quandary. "I cannot turn away out of hand any that come for Sanctuary," she answered at length. "You know this."

"Yes," Methos hedged. "But what are you going to do?"

Rebecca sighed heavily, knowing full well that she couldn't avoid the question much longer. She turned from him again and the lace curtains seemed to shroud her. Methos knew that he had better remain where he was.

"I have a responsibility here," she said at length. "To this land, to these people."

"I am not asking you to forsake that."

Rebecca barked a laugh, tired and bitter. "You never ask, _brother_." The familiarity fell as curse.

Methos dropped his gaze and examined his toes. He didn't look up again until he heard the lace rustle again. Rebecca had turned and now finally traversed the threshold to stand inside once more. When she spoke her voice was stern and devoid of all emotion.

"You are going to tell me what happened, Adræfan of the Horse Lords. You are going to start from the beginning and you aren't going to omit even the smallest detail. Only when you have given me the _truth_ will I be able to decide how best to help you."

Methos nodded gravely, but inside he could have leapt for joy. "Of course, milady," he acquiesced, slipping into formality for such was the power of Rebecca's change of countenance.

Rebecca wordlessly glided towards the door, and Methos got the distinct impression that he was to follow her. Somewhere more formal, and more private than the library would be needed for this council.

* * *

_The Café__  
_

Amanda sat, quiet and thoughtful, as she took in all that Methos just told her. Later on in her immortal life, academically she learned that King Egbert of Wessex had declared himself overlord of England, and that his "United Kingdom," aside from a gross delusion of grandeur, was an attempt to present a unified defense against Viking and Danish invasion. It wasn't until much later, long after she'd already lived through it, that she understood how her native Wessex had been the seat of power for the entire island, and that the supposed peace from the outside world that was her early life (as harsh as it was from the inside) was bought by the blood of that alliance.

As she studied her history, she learned that Æthelwulf, son of Egbert, had inherited a coalition of kingdoms that were falling one by one to rivalry and disputed crowns, which weakened each state and made them vulnerable to invaders. By the time of her stay with Rebecca, Wessex alone remained steadfast in its monarchy. The other kingdoms? Well, they still existed too, but under Danish or Viking rule. The old treaties of alliance were now treaties of non-aggression, and Æthelwulf fought diplomatic wars all over the map to ensure that his people remained safe within his kingdom.

All of these things she had learned centuries ago when she took to a serious study of historical politics. She also became painfully aware of the lie the Crown kept going for the good of the people. So many times they were saved from eminent destruction by a last minute treatise or concession. So many times were the people convinced of peace and plenty while encroaching armies were camped just out of range of Æthelwulf's walls. For the proletariat, ignorance was bliss.

Later on Amanda realized, much to her disillusionment, that while the people were kept happy and ignorant, the church was mightily aware of all that was going on. The Roman Church, the biggest conqueror of Europe, knew everything about the wars of those they were trying to convert—knew and did nothing, because the destitute and starving were easier to preach to. Of course, the Church could be _made_ to care, for the correct price. That price for King Æthelwulf was enormous. It forced him to tax his people nigh into oblivion, creating the conditions into which she was born, lived, and died. She starved because of those taxes, which later she learned barely paid the tithes.

Æthelwulf paid off the Church, and the Church in turn used its blanketing influence to keep the peace amongst its followers. The Archdioceses in Viking-controlled York and Danish-controlled Canterbury masterfully played their subjects like an elaborate orchestra, and Wessex remained untouched and un-invaded for as long as Æthelwulf could afford to pay them. The Vikings and the Danes converted in mass numbers due to the peace (and the wealth) that the Church brought, meanwhile poor Wessex was slowly starved, simply so that Æthelwulf could preserve the freedom of his people.

Amanda learned so much later in life that the reason why she knew such diversity was because the Faithful fled the conquered nations and took refugee status in Wessex. Wessex, that could barely afford to feed its own people, was trying to support the massive in-flood of refugees—mainly those of pagan religions and Christian servants displaced when greedy invaders needed to get the Archdioceses' attention. Good King Æthelwulf turned none away, for he believed that it was better to starve free than to live a false life in plenty.

And Amanda agreed with him. Amanda loved her king and hated the Roman Church. Æthelwulf fought to keep a dying dream alive: his father's dream, that all could live in peace, with freedom from fear and freedom of choice.

It was of course inevitable that Wessex would fall. Either through kinstrife amongst Æthelwulf's sons or the eventual drying up of funds and resources. Finally, Wessex would pay for those years of peace and freedom. Invasion was immanent. Church-loyal Norsemen and Danes would finally throw open the gates and sack every city. The invaders would get the spoils, and the Church would finally have the crowned jewel of Britannia. The pagans would be forced to flee into hiding, convert, or die as martyrs—not that the invaders would care what their patron Church was doing as they would be too busy enjoying the spoils of war. It was win-win for the enemies of Wessex, and all that was stopping them was time.

These things Amanda knew because she studied them. As life would play out, she was nowhere near England when the final conquest happened. She returned when she'd heard tell of course, only to find Rebecca's beautiful abbey in ruins. Whither her teacher had fled she knew not, and didn't learn for many years. It was Darius that arranged their reunion, but of those final dark days Rebecca would never speak. Amanda finally stopped asking, and only the relatively modern invention of women's education allowed her to finally come to understand that which had previously been right under her nose. Even still, she and Rebecca never got around to discussing it.

Amanda released a tired sigh, and this effectively roused Methos from his own musings.

"Deep thoughts?" he asked neutrally, the glittering green eyes of the scholar Adam Pierson regarding her with mild intent.

She shook her head dismissively. "I lived through those times, but I didn't know anything about the world I lived in."

Methos smiled sadly. "Rebecca went to great lengths to ensure that."

"I know," Amanda agreed, bitterly. "I didn't learn the truth until centuries later. It's amazing the things you learn when you actually take an interest."

Methos laughed outright. "I probably don't want to know what you believed until then."

Amanda shot him a sour look. "I lived in Wessex, and life sucked. Then I met Rebecca lived with her, and life was good. We weren't conquered until after I left. I didn't need to know the hows and whys of it—I had been immortal long enough by then to accept Rebecca's lessons. Everything changes. I… adapted, and got on with life."

"Spoken like a true immortal," Methos pronounced with amusement.

Amanda's expression changed then. Something hard and desperate flashed through her dark eyes. Methos instantly took notice. Something told him that he wasn't going to like what followed.

"Methos, be honest with me. What was Rebecca's role in—all of that?"

Methos sighed heavily and blinked slowly, sitting back in his chair. No, he definitely didn't like where this was going. "How much do you know?" he asked tentatively.

"Only the obvious. Rebecca set up the abbey as a sanctuary for mortals and immortals alike. The King respected her enough to leave well enough alone—except for when you came to visit, that is." Methos chuckled at the qualifier, then Amanda shrugged. "Other than that? Well she was an immortal living on holy ground. I guess I'd always assumed that it was because she didn't want to fight anymore." Methos laughed again, and now Amanda grew impatient. "Ok, what am I missing?"

Methos stopped laughing and sighed heavily. "Can I assume that I don't have to lecture you on the socio-political climate of the times?" he asked, slipping into Adam Pierson's scholarly mode.

Amanda shot him a withered looked. "Just tell me about Rebecca. And not the watcher version."

Methos sighed again, trying to decide how best to do this. "First another question: did Rebecca ever mention her teacher?"

"You mean that guy everyone called 'The Ancient?' Just that he once taught both of you, and that Darius killed him."

"Well, what Rebecca may have left out was that she was his star pupil. He was a scholar and a healer, and temples were the places in the ancient world where… such things were allowed to happen. After teaching Rebecca, she left to enter the real world and discovered that she didn't much like it. He allowed her to stay on with him in his temple in Babylon. She was his… well heir is the wrong word, but she was a scholar, and a healer, and diplomatic liaison to the outside world."

"That sounds like Rebecca," Amanda interjected.

Methos grinned. "Rebecca really took to the idea of a Sanctuary. You know, a place immune to war, politics, and any other outside influence? She wanted a place that even mortals would respect so that all who sought refuge were safe."

Amanda nodded. "That was St. Anne," she mused wistfully.

Methos nodded in verification. "She took what the Ancient taught, and from those ideals… created places like St. Anne. First with him, then on her own. Darius… well, the Ancient knew that Darius's mortal army would sack his Sanctuary along with the city because they were not bound to respect holy ground." Methos cast his eyes downward and Amanda sensed the change in mood as one detects the temperature dropping. "Immortals can't destroy a holy place, but they can command others to do so."

Amanda nodded gravely in understanding. "So the Ancient went out to meet Darius's army?" She could tell that this line of questioning was painful for Methos, but her desire to know the truth was greater than her empathy.

Methos didn't evade, however. He laughed in bitter amusement. "When he died… he was the oldest living immortal. He was wise, and he was powerful. He knew that he couldn't turn Darius's army away. Only Darius could do that."

Amanda's eyes went wide. "He sacrificed himself?"

Methos couldn't speak; he merely nodded. Finally he found his voice again. "And Darius disbanded his armies and spared the city. Then he took over the governorship the Sanctuary in the Ancient's name, and stayed there until his death. The temple dwindled into an abbey, then a rectory, and finally became a small church with few resident monks. Mortals no longer came there for sanctuary."

"But immortals did," Amanda concluded, new understanding coloring every word, every glance.

Once again Methos could only nod, and silence reigned as Amanda pondered these revelations. Then finally:

"But what about Rebecca?"

Methos seemed to surface from his own thoughts at the question. The golden eyes of the world's oldest immortal rolled back behind a veil of green as the scholar-historian took over. "She was… employed by independent means, when we learned of our teacher's death. After confronting Darius… we went our separate ways again. When I found my way to Britannia nearly four centuries later, I discovered that she had established St. Anne's."

"She told me that the foundations were laid roundabout 660 or so," Amanda informed him.

Methos nodded with scholarly interest. "That fits with what the watchers have on it. They claim she hitched a ride with the first missionaries under St. Augustine."

"That would make sense," Amanda mused. "They would have let her set up an abbey or convent to house the converts who chose that lifestyle. Especially if Rebecca could front the money for it herself."

"Exactly," Methos agreed. "Establishing one of the Ancient's sanctuaries in Britannia would have been… appealing to her."

Amanda easily picked up on what he did not say. "Why Britannia? Was he born there?"

Methos laughed aloud. "I don't even think _he_ knew where he was from." Then he sobered. The green eyes melted into gold and Amanda shivered at the change. "He and Rebecca were still running the sanctuary in Babylon when it fell. After that… he needed to take her away. Find a change of scenery to try and get past the… memories. They went to Britannia."

"Rebecca saw the fall of Babylon?" Amanda breathed, startled and frightened and in awe of a rather large and important factor of Rebecca's life that she'd never even guessed at.

Methos nodded gravely, and the cold, dead look to his gold eyes frightened her. She needed to change the subject.

"Well, that explains St. Anne," Amanda said, forcing herself to sound cheerful. Just when she started thinking that something stronger would be needed to breach the walls of memory Methos was suddenly trapped behind, the eldest immortal blinked slowly and then sighed.

"So now you know," he declared tonelessly. It appeared to Amanda that he was trying to bring his emotions under control—emotions that he wasn't letting her see.

"I wish she would have told me herself." Amanda allowed Methos to see the hurt she felt at having been kept in the dark about so much for so long. It was a way to distract him from his own pain.

It worked.

"That wouldn't have fit with her 'shield you from the world' motif," Methos pointed out, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

Amanda chuckled without mirth. "No it wouldn't," she agreed. Then a sudden thought came to her: "But what about the politics of the time?"

Methos dutifully looked up, bright green eyes questioning her meaning.

"What happened between you and the King? And what on earth was Rebecca doing in the middle of that whole mess anyway? I thought you said that she wanted a place free from political persecution…"

Methos laughed at her rapid-fire questioning. "Those with the cleanest faces have the dirtiest hands," he said, affecting wisdom with the ancient saying.

Amanda smirked. "She had her fingers in dozens of different pies so that she could convince them to leave her and the abbey alone?"

"In an oversimplified way, yes, I'd say that's accurate. I did tell you that she once served as the Ancient's diplomatic liaison." Methos watched Amanda nod, seeming to readily accept this overly simplified answer when actually she was merely distracted by another, more pressing thought:

"But what about you? You still haven't told me what your role was in all of this."

Methos sighed because it covered his groan. "Want more coffee?" he asked, grabbing both of their cups and standing up. "It looks like we're going to be here a while."

* * *

AN- St. Augustine led the first Christian missionaries into Britannia around 600 AD. (Theoretically the Irish received their own missionaries around this time too and by 850 AD both Romanesque Christianity and Celtic-ized Christianity were intermingling in Anglo-Saxon Brittany.) In 800 AD Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Across the channel, the kings of Wessex, now the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom, get jealous and want similar titles. They sought to unite all of Anglo-Saxony under their crown (as well as everyone else on that island (Scots, Picts, etc)). The king who succeeded at this was Egbert in 829 AD, despite not having a firm grasp of the kingdom's he's annexed/conquered/peaceably taken over. Then in 839 AD his son Æthelwulf assumed the throne and ruled until 858 (and was thus king during Amanda's tenure with Rebecca). During this time, the Viking (Norse, Swedish, and Danish) raids are getting a bit out of hand and finally only Wessex remained relatively untouched, and stood alone against the invaders. Also during this time, while Wessex is virtually surrounded, the two archdioceses (heads of the Christian Church) on the Island are in Viking-controlled York and Danish-controlled Canterbury. 


	6. Politically speaking

_The Abbey  
__A Conference Room later in the day_

Methos found himself seated roughly across the table from Rebecca. Yet even though this particular table was round, he got the distinct impression that Rebecca was sitting at its head. The sensation left him feeling quite ill at ease as he surveyed the rest of the attendees.

Seated beside Rebecca on her left hand was her head guard, eyes impassive and fixed ahead. Not even Methos wanted to hazard a guess as to what he was thinking. Next to him and therefore next to Methos sat an aged man in billowy brown robes. His long white beard was well tended though in discordance with his thinning, scraggly hair, which still retained a few wisps of smoky gray. He had entered just moments before, hobbling with a large walking stick. Methos knew the earmarks of a Druid priest when he saw one, and it set his teeth on edge to be seated so close to one.

Of course, the Druid was not as bad as the seemingly kindly old monk seated on Methos's other side engaging the Druid in idle conversation. Being spoken around like that only added to Methos's anxiety as he waited for this meeting to be called to order. Of course, that may have aided by his own personal bias against men of the cloth, but something in the slightly disinterested way that the monk surveyed his surroundings made Methos feel as though he was merely attending a performance—that the monk already knew the outcome and was simply waiting for the acts to play out.

Between the monk and Rebecca and rounding out their tea party of sorts was the Celtic priestess Methos recognized from dinner. He felt her gaze wash over him, her silent questions reaching out towards him from across the table. Methos shifted his gaze and made eye contact, both defiant and dispassionate, and was slightly amused as her expression came to mirror his own. His musings on whether or not she had gleaned something from his soul through that glance, or if she was simply mirroring him for the effect it had, was cut off by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Rebecca.

"Gentlemen, if you don't mind…?" The Christian and Druid ceased their chatter and turned obedient eyes towards their Lady. Rebecca sat back in her chair, content that all attentions were focused on her. "Now, our guest here is Eofrea to the King, and he has something important to tell us."

That was all the introduction Methos got. All eyes shifted expectantly towards him. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable at the sudden spotlight. "Ah, Milady Rebecca," he began, his discomfort obvious. "If I may be so bold, what I am about to reveal counts as sensitive information. Of course I mean absolutely no offense whatsoever when I ask you this, but are you sure that all ears present are good candidates to hear such a discussion?"

Rebecca's eyes narrowed at him across the table. "If you are asking me if the members of this council are to be trusted, _brother_," that word, flung as a curse again, "then be reassured that the least trustworthy set of ears here belongs to _you_."

All right, that one hurt.

"Ah, yes, well…" His eyes drifted around the table to the others present as he firmly threw his walls in place. He was on a mission here; now it was time to forget all else save what was important to _this_ century. He cleared his throat, and began his tale. "May I assume that you are all familiar with the current tide of politics in our fair province?"

Nods all around.

"Good. Then I need not waste time trying to paint the picture for you before I attempt to describe it. Æthelwulf's reign is drawing to a close. Many foresee that he does not have even five winters left, and as much as I hate to agree with them I find that I must do so. His health is starting to fail, though I wish—"

"But we are not here to discuss your personal wishes," Rebecca smoothly interrupted.

Methos bit his lip to keep from saying something rather inappropriate. "Quite right, Milady," he acquiesced. He took a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. "Æthelwulf has been doing his best to keep our lands and people safe from Roman invasion, even if by proxy." Methos couldn't help the smile as he said that. He really meant the Roman _Church _invasion, but it wasn't quite as much fun to say. "Yet at this late hour we are nearly bankrupt, our stores of wealth—monetary and otherwise, having been tithed to keep us free. Our people are starving, refugees are nearly more numerous than our ancestral families, and religious strife is becoming more and more commonplace. Hold no illusions, for we are rapidly approaching our most desperate hour."

"Quite the doom-speaker," the Druid proclaimed almost disinterestedly.

"I didn't come to speak our doom," Methos softly countered, ever aware of Rebecca's burning eyes upon him. "Only to relay the truth."

"We know what you speak is true," said the Celtic priestess. "We are not children you must frighten with fireside tales."

"I never claimed that you were," Methos defended diplomatically.

"Tell us what you're here to tell us, Adræfan of the Horse Lords," Rebecca directed. "This council was not called in order to review that which we already know."

Methos bowed his head. "A thousand apologies, Milady" Then, looking up: "We are all very much aware of the outside forces plaguing our people. Yet how many of you are aware of the political undermining taking place from within?"

Well, that got everyone's attention.

"Æthelwulf is nearing the end of his reign, and as of this moment his sons arel itching to take his place."

"But Æthelwulf has guaranteed us that steps have been taken to negate a rivalry," said the monk, speaking for the first time.

Methos nodded. "Indeed his majesty has done so," he conceded. "Yet tell me truly, oh ye privileged few to hold the council of the King, do you really think that his steps will come to fruition?"

Silence around the table. Several individuals exchanged nervous glances with each other.

"That's what I thought," Methos continued. "If it's any consolation, you are not alone in that belief."

"Æthelbald," the priestess announced suddenly. Methos attention snapped to her, but she was too busy having a silent conversation with the Druid.

"Yes…" Methos affirmed, shaking off a sudden chill. "Æthelbald's greed and impatience are widely known at court. I personally fear that he is planning something to undermine his father's rule. Or worse."

"I thought we weren't here to discuss your personal opinions?" the monk challenged. Methos's eyes hardened and he was about to speak but Rebecca beat him to it.

"We are here to discuss why Adræfan has sought sanctuary within these walls," she said. Then to Methos: "Suspecting the eldest son of the King of treason is no trifling matter. You must have proof."

Methos's eyes met each individual seated at the table in turn. "My position is a humble one," he informed them. "I am merely the lord of horses. I am no counselor or advisor to his Majesty the King. I perform no great office nor do I command a single soldier. My ranks are filled with stable hands, breeders, trainers, and the like. It is an important and noble job, yet I am far from an important or noble person. Many at court forget my name; even fewer know anything about me save my office and for how long I've kept it. I am as a servant in their eyes—an important servant, mind you, but a servant none the less." Methos eyes took on a devilish twinkle. "And the funny thing about servants is that most people tend to regard us as no more than scenery."

"You've heard something!" the Druid exclaimed. Methos inclined his head, an almost regal acknowledgment. Rebecca looked oddly satisfied and nodded for him to continue.

"Indeed I have," he admitted. "I have firsthand information detailing Æthelbald's plans to usurp his father's throne."

"That, dear brother, is cause enough for sanctuary," Rebecca decreed with finality, as though perhaps her choice to grant permission had been questioned. And the familiar title was just another word again. Methos wondered if she knew how much the constant change was left him off balance, had him primed to flinch even when the dagger stayed safely inside its sheath.

On second thought, she probably did.

"What are these plans?" the Druid asked, pulling Methos out of his tangent musings. He sat forward in his chair and all save Rebecca leaned in to hear.

"The youngest son of Æthelwulf is to be taken to Rome on the insistence of his mother, the Queen Osburh. She wishes to have her final son anointed by the Pope."

"An unusual request…" the monk mused.

Methos nodded. "The royal midwife that brought young prince Alfred into the world was the one to suggest it. She claims that the birthing situation was… unusual."

"What's unusual enough to warrant divine intervention?" the monk asked, though the question was rhetoric.

Another chill danced down Methos's spine. He shook it off. "Officially, the story goes that it will protect Alfred from what is foreseen as being a hard life ahead for him."

"And unofficially?" the Druid interjected with a sly grin.

Methos bit his lip, hesitant for just a moment. "Unofficially, it is to absolve the boy of the sins of his mother, who brought him into this world."

Stunned silence.

"These are indeed heavy allegations, Adræfan," Rebecca pronounced, naturally the first to gain her composure. "First you accuse the Crowned Prince of plotting treason, and now you insinuate that the Queen has not been faithful. The wives of kings have been executed for less."

Methos nodded gravely. "Be that as it may, please believe me when I tell you that Queen Osburh is certain that Alfred is not Æthelwulf's son."

"And is the king aware of this?" the priestess asked.

Methos sighed. "I cannot say. The Queen is under the impression that he is not, but only she and King Æthelwulf know how frequently they've been abed together."

"Adræfan," Rebecca interrupted, "all speculation aside, are you saying that there's a connection between Æthelbald's plans to usurp the throne and his mother's supposed adultery?"

"Not quite," Methos answered. "I don't believe there's an overt connection, but rather that Æthelbald is planning on using his father's scheduled pilgrimage with Alfred as his timeframe during which he can attempt to seize the throne."

"While the cat's away…" A sly grin accompanied the Druid's musings.

Methos nodded. "Precisely."

"Do you know when the King plans to make this pilgrimage?" Rebecca asked.

"Not exactly," Methos confessed. "We have a cushion of time for now though. Queen Osburh does not want a toddler gallivanting across half of Europe." Nods from around the table. "It _will_ happen though. We have maybe five years at best."

"But I thought you were worried that he wasn't going to live that long?" the monk reminded him.

Methos folded his hands neatly on the table and stared directly at him. "You mean, do I think that such a trip, even two years from now would be quite detrimental to the King's health? That for him to leave, especially at a much later date as his Queen requests, would be akin to suicide? And that such a tragedy would most likely result in the abandonment of Prince Alfred on the mercies of whatever kingdom they happened to be passing through with nothing but a few coins and a papal blessing to his name? You're right, my good servant of the cloth. I am worried."

Silence in the aftermath of Methos's speech. The monk seemed to shrink a little there in his chair.

"Who knows that you possess this information?" Rebecca asked at length, returning the conversation to the track.

Methos sighed. "Æthelbert."

Silence turned to gasps.

"The second son!" the priestess exclaimed.

"You mean to say that Prince Æthelbert has information saying that you believe his older brother is conspiring against their father?" the Druid asked.

"Æthelbert is too busy commanding legions to pay attention to affairs at court," the monk dismissed.

"And who do you think tends the legionnaires' horses?" Methos redirected. The monk fell silent again.

"Æthelbert is no fool," the priestess affirmed. "He knows of his brother's greed."

"His time in the army has hardened him," Rebecca added. "He is not an easy man to fool."

"Even when his family is concerned?" the Druid countered.

"It doesn't matter," Methos interrupted. "As of yet there's no discernable proof against Æthelbald, yet Æthelbert has heard me speak against him."

"Many people don't like the Crowned Prince," the priestess reminded everyone. "What does that prove?"

"Æthelbert told his brother that he heard the Lord of Horses spreading rumors of disloyalty and prelude to treason," said Methos. "Æthelbald of course demanded restitution for this insult."

"Did he challenge you on the field of battle?" the Druid asked.

Methos snorted a laugh. "I wish." Then a sigh as he sat back in his chair. "No, he's much too cowardly for that."

"What did he do instead then?" the Druid returned.

Methos smiled sadly. "Ordered me to be executed for treason."

Unsurprised nods around the table, a few gasps.

"Beheading," Rebecca concluded, her eyes cold.

Methos nodded. "And I rather like having my head attached."

"So you fled," said the monk.

"That's why the King's guard chased you all the way to our doorstep," the priestess followed.

Methos offered a half-hearted smile and a shrug.

"You're a fugitive escaping the death mark for an unforgivable offense," the Druid sagely pondered. "You are not safe beyond these walls."

"Maybe not even then," Methos muttered. Then he looked up and met everyone's eyes in turn, Rebecca's last. He held her gaze as he said: "I know Æthelbald; he won't stop until he has my head on a pike. And on his brother's word, Æthelbert would chase me to the ends of the Earth, for he holds loyalty above all else."

"And like a good little prince, Æthelbert protects his kingdom first," said the priestess with a fair amount of sarcasm.

"He doesn't suspect his brother, yet. But he does believe his brother's opinions regarding traitors to the crown." A sardonic smirk acknowledged the inherent irony Methos recognized in his words.

"What does the _King_ think of all this?" the priestess interjected. "What of Æthelred?"

"Æthelred is just a boy," said the monk, once again dismissive.

"So is Æthelbert," the Druid countered.

"Æthelbert…" Methos interrupted, only to have the words fail him. He closed his eyes as if pained and took a deep breath before continuing. "Æthelbert is no less a danger for his age," he said at length. "At barely two and twenty he is one of the foremost strategists for his father." Then, looking down for now eye contact with Rebecca was unbearable. "He has been well taught." He didn't see Rebecca nod.

"And Æthelred?" she asked, her voice noticeably softer.

Methos looked up again. "Æthelred is too busy riding horses and training falcons to notice much of what goes on at court," he said neutrally, all emotion restrained. "Even if he is aware of what's going on… he wouldn't help nor hinder matters any unless Æthelbert directly asked him, and that isn't likely to happen."

"His brothers keep him on a short leash," the priestess surmised.

"Æthelbert does," Methos acknowledged. "Æthelbald could care less."

"But what of the King?" the monk demanded.

Methos sighed tiredly. "Think no less of my loyalties for my saying this," he began, "but I'm afraid that our king is far more skilled in international diplomacy than in the interpersonal, especially with regards to his own family. He loves his sons, make no mistake. But he doesn't know who they really are."

"And where does that leave you?" the priestess asked, though really the question was redundant.

Methos looked to her with sad, haunted eyes. "I am marked for death," he gravely reminded everyone. "Æthelbert will track me down on his brother's orders. It's only a matter of time before they come for me." A sad smile then. "Æthelbert will ride out himself to bring me to justice, and I have no ally at court to help me, for the King—even if made aware of this situation, would do nothing against his eldest son. At the most lenient I would be banished, and then my message would be forced to flee with me. As it is, I'm living on borrowed time."

"Then why stay?" the Druid asked. "Why not escape with your life while you still can?"

"Don't you know?" Methos returned, feeling every last one of his four thousand years. "Others need to know of Æthelbald's treachery. King Æthelwulf's reign must not be compromised."

"And you would risk your life for that?" the monk asked.

Methos met Rebecca's eye and nodded. "I would risk almost anything for that."

Rebecca paused, as though she was letting it all sink in, digesting the facts as they had been presented. Then: "I believe you, Adræfan of the Horse Lords."

Methos's smirk deftly masked his profound relief at hearing that. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

"For now, absolutely nothing," Rebecca answered. "We have until Æthelbert's forces arrive to make our plans. And even when they do, this place is still held as sanctuary. He won't attack outright."

"You mean to speak with him," the priestess guessed.

"I do," Rebecca acknowledged, newfound steel in her voice.

"And if he can't be reasoned with?" the monk challenged.

Rebecca met Methos's eyes then. The steel belied a hidden hurt that they both silently acknowledged. It made Methos look away.

"We will burn that bridge if we come to it," Rebecca pronounced at length.

The others seemed to silently agree.

* * *

_The café_

Methos finished his tale and sat silently, staring into his now-cold coffee. Amanda too was lost in her own thoughts. She had of course known of the council meeting, but all that she really knew about its contents was that afterwards Rebecca doubled the guard and sent many scouts off to parts unknown. The atmosphere had been tense, but it seemed as though the inhabitants of the abbey were taking the fatalistic approach and trying not to let whatever was coming interfere with everyday life.

"You were waiting for Æthelbert's army…" she concluded finally. Methos gave no indications that he'd heard her. "You knew," Amanda continued. "You knew all along, didn't you." More of an accusation than a question.

Methos just nodded again. The coffee had gone from tepid to cold in the paper cup between his hands. Quite undrinkable, but for some reason worthy of keeping close at hand. "From the moment the abbey doors opened for me I knew the risk," he admitted at last. "Then, when Rebecca granted me sanctuary anyway…" Methos seemed trapped by that undrinkable coffee, unable to remove his hands from the cup nor his eyes from the liquid within.

"But you stayed…" Amanda mused out loud. She was idly tracing a finger around her cup, trailing coffee stains with her as she went. Then suddenly her finger stopped. She looked at Methos harshly, squinting almost.

Too bad he was incapable of noticing.

"You stayed because you knew you wouldn't let it happen," Amanda decreed. "That was your plan all along—it's why you came to the abbey in the first place! You came to Rebecca to buy yourself the time to make sure others would know what you knew—you _wanted_ it to end that way!"

Methos looked up at that, slack-jawed in shock as the ghosts of those times swirled in his eyes, amber-gold. Amanda watched as Methos returned to himself, slowly and by degrees, until at last he found his voice.

"If I had any other option, believe me I would have taken it."

Amanda arched a sardonic eyebrow. "And spared yourself a particularly nasty end?"

Methos slowly cocked his head to the side and glared. It wasn't a murderous glare, or a sarcastic one. No, it was cold. Downright glacial, actually. And the anger that she was so readily expecting never came. There was a sadness there instead, a sadness that made Amanda regret that she's even said a word to Methos.

No, _not _Methos.

Adræfan?

_What color were his eyes back then?  
_

"Who were you…?" she asked at length, her voice trailing.

His voice was strained, as though the answer was pulled somewhere from the depths of his gut and scraped over everything rough and ragged on its way out. "An exile."

"Adræfan, Lord of Horses."

"That was my name," Methos dismissed.

"It's a title, not a name."

"It's the name I took."

"Names are given." An echo of Rebecca's voice.

Methos snorted in disgust. "Who gave you the name 'Amanda'?"

But Amanda didn't miss a beat. "Some old crone."

The scholar Adam Pierson jerked his head around at her ready answer.

"Some half crazed, half starved old hag that I only half remember. But she draped me in rags and gave me half her beggar's winnings."

Methos looked stricken. "I didn't know…"

Amanda relished his expression. "No _watcher_ does." Another familiarity. Another curse.

That softened expression became defiant. "Amanda never told Adræfan."

"She told Methos."

"Are we really all that different?"

Amanda scoffed. "Methos and Adræfan? Or Benjamin Adams, or Adam Pierson, or whatever other names you've used?"

He turned away. The cold coffee began leaking through the cracks in the cup being clenched in his hands. "They're only masks."

Her gaze was hard, her tone unforgiving. "Then who's wearing them?"

The cup crumbled. Cold coffee splashed across his hands and dribbled over the paper saucer and onto the tabletop. It smelt stale and acrid the way bad coffee does, but then suddenly his vision tunneled inwards and the stains washed red before his eyes. He shivered; a shuddering blink, and once again his hands were covered in the tragic remnants of his coffee.

"I... I don't know." Something had broken inside. His voice had been cut all to pieces on the shards.

The words—and the sound of them—knifed straight through Amanda's bitter thoughts, thoughts that stemmed from bitter memories and bitterly broken promises… the bitter taste of loss conveyed by the stale smell of cold and bitter coffee dripping off the side of the table and splashing on the floor unheeded about by the two who saw it fall.

"Who wears the Methos mask?" she asked softly, almost maternally with the way brand new concern etched through the delicate syllables.

He was reminded of Rebecca then. It made his stomach turn.

"Adam Pierson," he answered, the final word on the matter as he sat back in his chair and casually wiped his hands with the few napkins that had escaped the deluge of coffee.

Amanda saw him retreat, back behind his high walls and out of reach of her outstretched hand. She sighed and looked away only to see his reflection in the storefront window as the setting sun cast long shadows and orange light fell in wisps of smoky dust and provided her with a tainted looking glass. Methos's reflection was haphazardly mopping up the remains of the spill and Amanda mused at how their lives had turned to coffee.

"Sorry about that," Methos said idly, finally breaking the silence. Amanda _knew_ he was referring only to the spill.

"Don't worry about it," she said with half-hearted sincerity. A pause, then: "You're out of coffee."

A patented Adam Pierson chuckle. "So it would seem."

"You want some more?"

A smile, genuine this time. "Actually, I think I've had enough caffeine for one day."

"Beer?"

"Ah, no thanks," Methos weakly refused as he fought down a sudden wave of nausea.

Amanda's eyes narrowed. "Do you know the last time I saw you refuse a beer?"

"Don't." A cold, commanding voice. Glittering gold eyes.

Amanda sat back and raised her arms, an exaggerated expression of contrition. "Hey, when I see you not drinking beer it's the same as seeing MacLeod not fretting over something trivial." Then she shrugged. "I worry."

Methos laughed a cold, bitter guffaw. "I didn't think you were the type."

"Oh, I'm usually not," Amanda agreed with a casually dismissive hand wave, then a predatory grin slid across her face. "I just happened to think you were worth the exception. My mistake."

Methos recoiled. He looked down and a way, studying the coffee stains evaporating off the floor. "I'm sorry."

"Bullshit."

Methos winced.

"You're not the type."

Methos looked up, aghast. "Not the type to be sorry?"

"You haven't felt guilt since the eleventh century," Amanda mocked.

Methos blinked, then shrugged one shoulder oh-so-casually. "Not as a general rule," he admitted. "I just happened to think you were worth the exception." He looked away again, back to the floor, as though keeping up such smug airs was too exhaustive to be bothered with.

"Your mistake?" Amanda finished, her voice pinched into a pained sort of squeak.

Methos laughed again, low and bitter in the back of his throat. "No."

And then silence, stretching out between them like a yawning chasm until at last Amanda broke it.

With a sniffle. 

Methos looked up to see that Amanda had turned so that she now faced completely away from him. She's pulled one leg up until that foot rested on the seat of her chair and as she hugged her knee to her chin. The ancient immortal saw a lone tear slowly track down Amanda's profiled face and fall silently to the floor.

"I'm sorry," Methos said gently. "I... I didn't mean that."

Amanda laughed through another sniffle. "I know. It's not that."

"What then?" Methos's voice was soothing. Amanda nearly relaxed.

"I did."

"Did what?" Methos asked, confused.

"I did mean it. When I said—" she choked herself off, gave a hasty head shake. "I meant it."

Methos blinked. "That you were worried? I believe you."

Amanda shook her head and laughed again as another tear dropped from her chin down onto her knee. "No. I meant to hurt you. I _wanted_ to hurt you."

"Why?" No outrage, no accusation or indignation. Just innocent curiosity.

Her response was quiet, pained. "I don't know."

Methos took a moment to consider. "Leaswene wanted to hurt me," he said finally. "And Amanda is sorry for it."

The femme immortal just shook her head again. "No. No, I'm not like you. It's all me inside. I'm not some… collection, of names and personalities. Your masks... I can't, I—" she bit herself off again, clamping down on her lip hard enough to bruise. "I'm just… me."

Methos studied her for a long moment, and then nodded as though he had always known that. He probably _did_, if Amanda gave it any thought.

"And what does that mean to you?" he asked, gently prodding. "You have the ghost of a little girl whom an old beggar woman named Amanda." Amanda bit her lip and looked to the floor as another tear let loose. "And the ghost of a new immortal whom Adræfan called "Leaswene, and so marked the beginning of the end of her stay in paradise."

Amanda dragged a hand across her eyes, swatting away the moisture. "It all changed so much after you left. Rebecca changed."

"The times changed," Methos elaborated.

"We're immortal!" Amanda suddenly exclaimed, probably louder than she ought. "We're supposed to be immune to time." Time, the word spoken as a curse.

A curse indeed.

Methos offered a rueful smile. "If only that were true."

And that left them wallowing in silence once again, until finally:

"Methos?"

"Hmm?"

"Did she ever tell you? I mean, you know... how?"

Methos sighed heavily. "You mean what happened in the end?"

Amanda nodded.

"No," he lied, deadpan.

Amanda nodded again, this time in acceptance.

"I miss her."

"I know." Pause. Then, softly, "so do I."


	7. Moral ambiguity

_The Café_

Methos sat and tried not to watch as Amanda pulled herself together. He had most of the coffee spill cleaned up and was simply waiting patiently while Amanda examined her face in a compact.

"I hate how you can never hide it," she said bitterly as she shut the compact and stowed it away. Her face was a little less red and her eyes a little less puffy, but you could still tell that she'd been upset.

Methos nodded gently in understanding. "Speaking of, we should probably get out of here before they kick us out."

Amanda snorted. "So we stop making a scene?"

"Something like that."

Amanda nodded in acquiescence and they stood from their chairs. Then, donning coats, they headed for the door.

"Where are we going?" Amanda asked casually as they exited the café.

Methos grit his teeth and silently commended her ability to affect such a casual air. He shrugged. "I don't suppose you have a hotel?"

"Not yet. I only just got into town."

"Back to my place then I suppose." And he started walking… the opposite direction from whence they came. Amanda jogged a stride to catch up with him and buried her questions for a later day. They walked in silence for a time.

"Well, at least it's cleared up a bit," Amanda offered, casting her gaze heavenwards at the overcast sky that was a few shades brighter than before.

Methos nodded absently. "I hate Paris weather."

"It's not so bad in late summer or early fall…" Amanda defended half-heartedly.

"This is early spring."

Amanda sighed in resignation. "So it is."

More silent walking, down streets without direction and not coming anywhere near Methos's apartment.

"How long will you be in town?" Methos surprised her by speaking first.

"Oh, I dunno," Amanda answered with a shrug. "I only came back to visit Rebecca; haven't made any real plans yet."

Methos nodded. "Pity MacLeod isn't here." His tone was almost mocking, but Amanda laughed anyway.

"He's still in Seacouver losing money in that dojo of his."

"Why don't you go visit him? Getting on the highlander's nerves is always good for one's mood."

"I only left two months ago. I think we've annoyed each other enough to last a year."

"Only a year? You two used to go decades without seeing each other. Now you barely go months."

Amanda shrugged dismissively, not the response he was expecting. "I'm stealing less, he's moving less… In this day and age, I know where to find him, you know?"

"If you need him?"

Amanda bit her lip but didn't say anything.

"There's no shame in that," Methos continued. "We all have those we turn to in hours of need."

"Sure, I turn to MacLeod," she admitted casually. "When I'm ducking an immortal or running from the cops."

"Ah, the lovely 'damsel in distress' act."

"It's not an act!"

Methos nearly stumbled in his shock—though Amanda was pretty sure it was an exaggerated gesture.

"Ok maybe it is, a little," she grudgingly conceded. "But there were times when I really did need his help!"

"Oh, I believe you," Methos admitted with a touch of humor. "But challenges and arrest warrants are one thing, Leaswene."

"Oh yeah?" And what's the other?"

"Would you go to him now? After you've just been crying over Rebecca?"

Amanda's jaw dropped.

Methos nodded. "That's the other."

"Well—would you?" Amanda stuttered defensively. "About Alexa?"

"You've got it backwards, kid," Methos scoffed, and Amanda could tell her mentioning Alexa probably poked at the wrong can of worms. "MacLeod goes to _me_ for help, not the other way around."

"But would you?" she persisted. "If you needed help, would you go to MacLeod? And I don't mean about challenges, either."

Methos didn't answer right away and Amanda chanced a sidelong glance in his direction as they walked. He was looking down, staring intently at the cobblestones as they passed beneath his feet. She couldn't see his eyes.

"You mean, if I needed a shoulder to cry on over the death of a loved one?"

Amanda nodded expectantly.

Methos chuckled breathily. "Well that's rather an awkward situation, since it's usually MacLeod who's killed them."

Amanda stopped in her tracks, stunned, but Methos kept right on walking. After a moment she closed her mouth and jogged to catch up to him, still reeling from shock.

"What do you mean? Has Duncan killed people you care about?"

Methos laughed briefly, bitterly. "Frequently."

It seemed he was walking faster now. Amanda was striding briskly to maintain pace. "When? Who?" she sputtered. "Is that what was between you two last Christmas?"

Methos suddenly stopped short. Amanda outpaced him but recovered quickly. She turned to face him, and nearly gasped at the sight. His eyes were hard, gold, and gleaming out out of a face that seemed carved in granite. He looked ancient, standing there, and Amanda suddenly remembered that he was.

"Methos?"

"You would do well to forget what you've learned," he warned her, almost threateningly.

Amanda felt the sudden surge of memory slam her in the chest, and her eyes widened.

* * *

_The Abbey  
__During the conference, on the other side of the doors_

"What do you think is going on, Amanda?"

"I don't know, Grenhyrde. But whatever it is, it's big."

"Can you hear anything?"

"Well, maybe if you'd stop blathering in my ear!"

The two were kneeling on the floor by the doors, ears pressed up against the wood. They had been there for ages it seemed, long enough for their legs to go numb, trying to discern what the 'adults' were talking about.

"Oh, it's no use!" Grenhyrde whined. "I guess we're just not meant to know."

"Wasn't this your idea in the first place?"

"Only because I had to talk you out of sneaking into Lord Adræfan's chamber!"

"Shh! Not so loud!"

"If we can't hear them in there then how can they hear us out here?"

"You'd be surprised…" Amanda put her ear to the door again.

"Come on, Amanda. My foot's gone tingly. Let's get out of here. If it's something important they'll tell us soon enough."

"I wouldn't count on it," Amanda negated. She shifted her position against the door for the umpteenth time.

"Please, Amanda? If we get caught I won't be able to run away what with my legs all asleep."

"You can leave any time you like, Grenhyrde."

"But you can't even hear anything!"

"Shhhhh!"

Grenhyrde bowed his head in defeat, but he didn't move. They stayed that way for another minute.

"Please, Amanda? It's not worth getting in trouble if you don't even have anything to show for it."

"Who said anything about getting in trouble?"

"I _know_ you, Amanda."

Amanda sighed. She just couldn't resist his pleading eyes. "Oh all right!" She pushed herself to standing and the numbness in her legs went away with immortal speed. She reached a hand down to Grenhyrde, who had a bit of trouble getting his mortal legs to cooperate. "I guess we'll need to get answers another way."

"What other way?" Grenhyrde asked as he massaged his calf.

Amanda's face lit up in a wicked grin. "With them all in the conference there'll be no one to catch us in Adræfan's room!"

"Amanda!" His groaning call fell on deaf ears as she was already making haste down the hallway. Grenhyrde had no choice but to go after her.

"See, it isn't even locked!" she beamed as she pushed open the door to Methos's room.

"Only the Lady has keys to these doors," Grenhyrde pointed out.

Amanda ignored him. "Do you have any flint?"

"There should be some by the lamp."

Grenhyrde was right, and soon Methos's room was aglow.

"Not a lot of light in here."

"All the rooms on the east side get dark early. Amanda, what are we looking for?"

"I don't know. I'll let you know when I find it."

"I'll… just keep watch by the door."

Amanda ignored him. She opened the trunk and found only old clothes. She looked under the bed and found only the empty chamber pot and bathing bowl. She sat down heavily on the bed and bounced a few times.

"He doesn't like a very tight bed, does he," Amanda observed.

"Someone should have tightened the ropes," Grenhyrde observed from the doorway. "One of the house servants does that every morning, when they empty the chamber pots and such."

"Hmmm…" Amanda bounced a few more times. "Maybe he asked them not to?"

"Now why would he do that?"

"Why indeed." Amanda suddenly stood up and turned to face the bed. She kneeled down and lifted the feather mattress off of its rope supports. "Aha!"

"What?"

"Get over here!"

Grenhyrde wavered a moment, still wary of being caught. Finally he left the door and stood behind Amanda. "Wow! There must be twenty rolls there!" It was a cache of vellum, rolled and tied with scraps of fabric and lined up in a row down the side of the bed.

"I can't grab them and still hold the mattress, so you'll have to do it."

"Uh… Are you sure, Amanda? Won't Lord Adræfan notice them being gone?"

"We'll have them all back before anyone's the wiser. Now come on!"

"I don't know about this…"

"Come on, this thing's getting heavy."

Grenhyrde didn't budge.

"All right. If it'll make you feel better, just grab one in each hand. We'll read them here by the lamp then put them back and go on to the next two."

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" But he did as he was told. Grenhyrde pulled out the first two rolls and Amanda dropped the mattress back down into place. Then she grabbed the rolls from his hands and went over to the lamp.

"Let's see what our Lord of Horses has been hiding…" Amanda unrolled the first one and smoothed it out beside the lamp. "Hmm, how's your Latin, Grenhyrde?"

"Fair. I stopped learning a while ago so that I could work in the gardens. Why?"

"Well I'm getting pretty good but there are still some words here I don't recognize."

Grenhyrde pushed Amanda out of the way and leaned in closer. "It's an official document," he said. "From the office of the Lord of Horses."

"What's it say?"

"The beginning rambles on a bit, saying who he is and how long he's held the office, stuff like that."

"I read that part! I'm talking about this stuff, down _here!_" Amanda pointed to another paragraph, several below where Grenhyrde was reading.

He skimmed down to that part. "Woah…"

Amanda's eyes lit up. "What is it?"

"After he talks about all the stuff he's done in office, and about how he's earned the confidences of the king—"

"Yeah?"

"Well, just listen to this: _And so I do hereby endeavor to reveal the secrets that I have discovered, for only with the light of truth can our fair kingdom be led from the darkness that threatens to consume it._"

Amanda gasped. "A confessional?"

Grenhyrde read some more. "No… A spy's dossier."

Amanda's eyes shot wide. "A spy! For whom?"

Grenhyrde read to the end of the document. "I don't know. He doesn't really say."

"Well what does he say then? There must be _some_ clue!"

"He's given a list of names, people who he claims aren't loyal to the king. He says some of how he found out, and a bit on how he's followed the breadcrumbs up the chains of command." Grenhyrde swallowed thickly and turned from the document to meet her gaze. "He's named some pretty important people here, Amanda. Members of the King's council, his governors, advisors…"

"Well where do their allegiances lie then, if not with the king?"

"I don't know. He only refers to them as 'The Serpent's Hand'."

Amanda blinked. "The serpent? Like in the Garden of Eden?"

Grenhyrde shrugged.

"Maybe it says more in these other parchments!" Amanda swiftly rolled the one they just read and tied it off with a scrap of cloth. Then she unraveled the next one and brought it over to the lamp. Yet there was nothing written on it. It was completely blank.

"Uh, Amanda?"

"Well, maybe he hasn't used this one yet."

"Makes sense. He hasn't been here that long."

Amanda was about to reply when she was interrupted by the sudden intrusion of the sensation of an approaching immortal. "Someone's coming!"

"What? I don't hear any—"

"Out the window! Go!" Amanda ushered Grenhyrde over to the window and practically threw him out of it with the leg up she gave him. "Climb down the espaliered pear tree!"

"But—"

"Go!" She pushed him out and watched him spin and grab the tree. He was safely making his way down and she was about to follow him when—

"You!"

She spun around and blocked the view out the window. "Lord Adræfan!" She saw that his eyes burned in his rage. If this weren't holy ground she would definitely fear for her head right now. Instinctively she brought a hand up to her throat. Then she was hit with the buzz from another immortal presence. Oh, no—

"I thought you said that she was trustworthy!"

"I did." Rebecca's cold, unforgiving glare as she came into view beside Adræfan was worse than any of his perceived threats.

"Rebecca, I—"

"And did we find what we were looking for?" Adræfan sneered as he advanced into the room. Amanda shrieked and tried to dart past him, but he caught her by the arm and threw her up against the bed. He grabbed the rolled up piece of vellum and turned to face her with it; and somehow it looked more like a weapon and less like parchment in his hands. "I trust we are now well informed?"

Amanda sent a panicked look to Rebecca, but her teacher's face was impassive. She'd find no help there.

"Please, sir! My Latin isn't very good, I could hardly understand—"

"Amanda," he interrupted her protests, his voice condescendingly inquisitive. "Is that your name?"

She nodded haltingly. "Yes, sir."

Adræfan's face twisted around a cruel smile. "It seems to me that someone was gravely mistaken at your baptismal. Leaswene I call you, for that is more akin to what you are." He enunciated the name it like a curse and Amanda turned her head, unable to help the tremors or stop the shaming tears.

While her glance was turned aside her attention was caught by the other roll of vellum, left open and sitting up against the glass guard of the oil lamp. Words were visible now, as though they had been branded there by the heat of the lamp. Her eyes widened in surprise and she nearly gasped, for it was written in the Old Tongue, the one Rebecca was teaching her, but she couldn't make out the words. Then Adræfan raised the rolled vellum as if to strike her. She shrieked again and fled to the door. Rebecca let her slip by and then allowed Amanda to cling to her like a frightened child.

"You should keep your children out from underfoot," Adræfan admonished Rebecca, and Amanda clung tighter to her teacher's skirts.

"They generally know better," Rebecca answered pointedly.

Amanda choked back a sob, almost in fear of Rebecca's eventual punishment. Adræfan walked towards them; Amanda could hear his footfalls on the stone floor. She looked up towards him despite her fears. On top of everything else, she didn't want to be seen a coward, too. Well, any more of one.

"And you," he said, addressing her with scorn.

Amanda forced herself to make eye contact, eyes shimmering.

"You would do well to forget what you have learned."

Amanda nodded haltingly again.

Rebecca then disentangled herself from her student. "Come," she directed gently. "Let us leave Lord Adræfan in peace." Then she led Amanda from the room and Adræfan shut the door behind them.

* * *

_The Street  
No time lapse _

"Oh no, Methos," Amanda negated firmly, determinedly ignoring the chills his look was giving her. "The last time you said that boatloads of shit hit the fan." The ghosts of painful memories flickered across her face momentarily. "I'm not Rebecca's airhead little student anymore. If something serious is going down… I want to know about it." Her indignation softened a little. She took a step towards Methos. "I want to help."

"I'm flattered," Methos dismissed, sarcastic, "but there isn't anything you can do. There isn't anything _anyone_ can do." His voice had becomea sneer, anger covering self-loathing.

Amanda took another step towards him, but he shied away.

"They're dead, Amanda. They're all dead."

"Who's dead Methos?" she asked gently.

Methos gave her a meaningful gaze, almost as though he was sizing her up. "It's none of your concern," he determined at length. Then he turned around to continue his walk to nowhere.

Amanda called after him. He stopped but didn't turn around, and took a slow, deliberate breath to calm himself down.

"Let it be, Amanda." The command came out as more of a tired, exasperated plea.

Amanda ignored it. "Why?" she challenged. She approached him with caution, as one would a wounded animal. "We've all been worried about you, Methos."

Yet he didn't rise to the bait.

"You left so suddenly. We all thought you'd decided to stay in Seacouver." Then she sensed rather than saw Methos's smirk.

"With MacLeod, Richie, and Joe? One big happy family?" He laughed bitterly. "You're still naïve, Leaswene."

"I may be many detestable things, Adræfan," Amanda retorted indignantly, "but I am not naïve. I know something happened between you and MacLeod, and I'm tired of everyone alluding to it only to change the subject a moment later like you're dangling a diamond in front of my face and then snatching it away. Either let me in on your little joke or stop playing it, because it isn't funny anymore."

Methos stood seemingly frozen, his back still to Amanda. Just when she was beginning to think that he was ignoring her in the hopes that she would just go away, he spoke.

"MacLeod's problem is that he can't reconcile his boyscout nature with the world's moral ambiguity. The longer he lives, the more he comes to learn that the world is more gray than black and white, and the more he grows to hate the world."

"Duncan has his demons, just like everyone else. _He_ isn't even as black and white as he wants to believe."

Methos nearly laughed at that. Nearly. "He hates his own hypocrisy most of all."

"All immortals are hypocrites, Methos, if they live long enough."

Finally Methos turned to face her. Amanda looked older there, in the fading grayish light, than he ever remembered her being.

"Are we?" he asked, the question genuine. "Whose to say that what we do is right or wrong? How can something we do that seems right in the moment be judged as good or evil centuries later by people who haven't seen the things we've seen or felt the things we feel? I remember a time when Hamurabi's Code was law and we all followed it as morally upstanding citizens. Now eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless and suddenly I'm a bad person—even though at the time I could have won citizenship awards—and I'm not the one who changed. How can the world change beneath me feet and then dare to call me hypocrite?"

Amanda found that she couldn't hold his gaze and so turned her face away. She had no answers for him.

"I was named Amanda by the woman who found me," she said at length, evading silence. "If she knew what it meant, she never told me before she died. It was just a name, but from when she died until Rebecca found me, it was all I had that was mine and mine alone. It wasn't something I had to steal, or borrow, or earn. It was given to me, and it was mine to keep forever and ever.

"Then I met you, and in a fit of anger you said that name didn't fit me, and so you gave me another. Leaswene: false maiden. And you still call me that whenever the mood strikes. I didn't understand it then, but I think Rebecca did because after we left your room she said it over again to herself, as though tasting a new vintage for the first time. She said I'd learn the significance of names when I got older—just like every other idea of immortality she didn't think I was smart enough or mature enough to handle. I didn't think anything of it until much later, after the abbey had been destroyed. I was with Darius, and for a laugh I told him that story. Well instead of laughing he got very serious, and asked if Rebecca ever called me that. I told him that she called me Amanda, and that I was Leaswene only to you. Well for whatever reason that seemed to cheer him up, but when I asked him about it he just asked me if I knew what the name 'Amanda' meant."

Her words hammered into him and Methos flinched and turned away. Yet Amanda wasn't finished yet.

"Amanda: Latin, one who is worthy of love."

And there his breath hitched.

"You said that whoever named me did a poor job, and took it upon yourself to fix the problem. You named me Leaswene, false maiden, and still use it—and you have the gall to ask the world what right it has to use current morals to judge your past? My past is just as immutable as yours and yet in your eyes who I am changes as often as the state of your own hypocrisy. Answer me my question Methos, and then maybe I can answer yours."

The two of them stood frozen, staring at each other across a four-foot expanse that stretched for thousands of years. Methos's face had a look of pain intermingled with curiosity, as though he'd just been shot and was too busy cataloguing the new sensations to care that he was dying. Amanda, for her part, seemed completely, utterly, hopelessly lost.

All immortals are hypocrites, if they live long enough.

They seemed to come back to the present then. Amanda blinked and the impassive face, the serene visage of quiet thought and innocent yet reflective judgment—Rebecca's face, melted away and it was Amanda standing there again.

"Tell me what happened Methos. Please. I can't help if I don't know."

Methos sighed, exhausted. "I've already told you what's wrong with MacLeod…"

"And that's not what I asked for. What happened between you, Methos? What did this to him?" She stepped closer. "To you?"

Methos sighed and ran a tired hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and the memories flashed before his vision, wisps of smoke in a false dawn. He felt himself start to shiver and wondered if it was because of some sudden chill in the air.

"MacLeod... killed people who were very dear to me," he confessed at length. "Two I had known nearly as long as I had known Rebecca. They were—" he choked on a bitter laugh. "My brothers," he confessed, surprised at how easily the word rolled off his tongue. "And another was my student, one of the very few I've had."

Amanda nodded slowly as puzzle pieces slowly began to fit into place. "I'm sorry," she said softly, walking ever closer, closing the gap between them. Something in the way she said it made Methos wonder exactly _what_ she was sorry for.

"Amanda?"

"That after all that, that Duncan still lives."

Methos's eyes opened wide, but Amanda continued before he could speak.

"He's killed three people that you care about, very recently I gather, and after each one you decided to let him live? I've seen what happens to those who hurt people you care about, Methos. Deciding not to kill MacLeod, and after all he's done... It must have killed you each time."

Methos grimaced, a study in muted agony. "Oh, you have no idea…"

Amanda reached up, tenderly, to touch his face, but he flinched away.

"It's more than that," she concluded aloud, lowering her hand half way. "You let him kill them, didn't you. You let him judge them and then take their heads. You stood aside and did nothing as they died." Amanda's voice, Amanda's face, and yet Rebecca's condemnation, damning him through simple truths, each statement a knife to the heart. "You let him, because if you didn't let him you would have had to challenge him."

"Stop," Methos mouthed, his voice unable to escape around the lump in his throat.

Amanda reached for him again and this time he let her. She smoothed his hair back out of his eyes, her cool fingers burning against his skin. "And you won't challenge MacLeod, because after five thousand years, you don't want to die."

"Stop. Please." Barely a whisper, hoarse and pleading, forced out with the strength of desperation.

Her hand stopped and cupped his cheek, and he thought his knees would buckle. "Or maybe, you can't challenge MacLeod because you won't kill him, and so instead you let his judgment be your penance."

"Please…" No sound again. He tried to look away but Amanda trapped him there, bringing up her other hand to frame his face.

"Whatever your reasons, they're killing you. And he's rubbing your face in it, taking away your right to mourn them."

Methos tried to pull away but she wouldn't let him.

"Grieve, Methos." Her voice was surprisingly gentle despite the obvious command. "It's ok for you to be glad that MacLeod's alive and still upset that the others aren't. You lost people that you cared about, and you don't have to be happy about it just because it means that MacLeod can keep his pretty little head a while longer. Stop damning yourself by claiming that you were too scared to face the highlander—and stop justifying it by claiming that you're too pious in your own purgatory to kill him, and simply grieve, Methos. Grieve for those you've lost."

Methos had no way of escaping. Memories flooded him and Amanda trapped him there. Finally he gave into the weight of it all and the barriers he'd so carefully constructed came crashing down. Before he knew it he felt Amanda's arms around him, as his fists clenched into the fabric of her coat and he allowed himself the precious luxury of a shoulder to cry on—Amanda's shoulder, the second time in as many years.

"You're a lot like her, you know," he said finally, once the tears ran dry. They were sitting on the curb in the middle of some narrow Paris street. Amanda still had a supportive arm draped around him and he was leaning his head against her shoulder.

"Who?"

"Rebecca. She would be proud of you."

Amanda scoffed. "I'm a thief. Always have been." Her voice was bitter.

Methos sat up straighter and put his arm around her, and so they sat, arms about shoulders and leaning into each other for support.

"You were Amanda to her then, and you stayed Amanda until the day she died. She taught you well, and she'd be proud of you."

"Do you really think so?"

Amanda sounded so very young then, with that question. Methos allowed himself to remember that she was only Rebecca's student, despite whatever words he was using. Memory had been confusing his perception. Rebecca was truly dead and gone, and only shades of her returned, shadows graying with the dawn, whenever she needed to hurt him in order to save him from himself.

Methos simply nodded. "I'm sure of it."

Amanda sighed tiredly, content. "Was I right in any of what I said?" she asked eventually, completely oblivious to how the effect was cheapened by her having to ask.

"Some," he answered evasively.

Amanda wasn't about to let him off the hook. "If you want my honest opinion—" he didn't, but what did that matter? "—I think that whatever went down, you allowed it to happen."

"And why do you think that?" he asked condescendingly.

"I don't pretend to know your reasons—" yes you did, but who's counting? "—but I do know that whatever happened wouldn't have happened if in some small way you didn't want it to."

"Fascinating," he said dismissively. "But you still haven't told me why you think that."

"Because you've done it before. At the abbey."

That caught Methos's attention. He stiffened beside her.

"You hated every minute of it, but you allowed it to happen because you believed in your reasons."

"And what makes you think that I believe in my reasons now?" he asked her, genuinely this time.

"I don't," she answered, matter-of-factly, taking Methos by surprise. "That's why I've been so worried."

Methos sighed tiredly and relaxed into Amanda's shoulder again. "I don't have to believe in my reasons," he declared, "so long as they're good reasons."

Amanda ignored how little sense that statement made. "And are they?"

"MacLeod's still here. You tell me."

"Is that your reason?"

"Well wouldn't that just make everything nice and simple."

Amanda nearly choked on her realization. "You believe in MacLeod!"

Methos hesitated just a moment before answering. "Yes."

"Well, can't that be reason enough?"

This time he answered immediately, definitively. "No."

"Why not?"

"If it was, you wouldn't be telling me I need to grieve."

Amanda scoffed. "Personal losses are more than just write-offs in the bigger picture."

"The bigger picture is my reason."

"But you're not even sure you believe in it!"

Methos arched an eyebrow. "I don't have to believe in it, remember?"

"But why don't you?"

"So that I never treat my personal losses as write-offs in the bigger picture."

Understanding bludgeoned Amanda then, and she was silent for many minutes. "Back at the abbey," she eventually hedged, "did you believe in your reasons then?"

Methos nodded. "I did."

"Did that make it any easier?"

A smothered snicker. "No."

Amanda was confused. "Well, what if you didn't believe in them?"

Now Methos laughed outright. "I wouldn't have even been in the position, so it's rather moot."

"Would you have preferred it that way?"

Methos had to think about that. "Yes," he answered a moment later.

"Would you change it if you could?"

Methos could answer that one immediately. "No."

Amanda laughed slightly and shook her head. "How did Rebecca ever put up with you and your ambiguities?"

"Not well," he answered truthfully.

Amanda smiled fondly. "I remember."

* * *


	8. Paradise lost

_The Abbey  
Rebecca's study, after Amanda was caught in Adræfan's chamber_

"You were very foolish, Amanda."

Amanda sighed. At least Rebecca had led her someplace private before beginning the lecture. "I know," Amanda admitted dejectedly.

"You had absolutely no reason to be snooping about in Lord Adræfan's chamber."

"I know."

"In doing so you violated the laws of this Sanctuary, laws that you swore to uphold when it was decided that you would remain here as my student."

"I know."

Rebecca considered her student for a long, agonizing moment. "You say that every time, Amanda. I wonder if you truly do."

Amanda bit her lip and hung her head, stung. "I do, Rebecca," she protested, contrite. Then she looked up, and stopped worrying her bottom lip just long enough to add, "I do know, and I'm sorry."

Rebecca sighed tiredly and made her way to her desk. She sat down rather heavily in her chair and folded her arms in front of her. She gazed up at her student plainly, and yet even seated and looking up Amanda still felt looked down upon. Worse than getting caught, she hated how Rebecca was always able to make her feel guilty.

"I wish I could believe that, Amanda," Rebecca said at length, her voice echoing a hollow sadness. Then she sighed, and shook her head slightly as if to banish unwelcome thoughts. "But you're young yet. You will learn eventually. Though, I fear that you won't much like the lesson."

Amanda studied the dust in the cracks of the stone floor, unable and unwilling to meet her teacher's gaze.

"Your encounter with Adræfan was punishment enough, I think," Rebecca continued, catching Amanda's attention. She looked up then, daring to be hopeful. "Just tell me what on earth possessed you to poke your nose into Lord Adræfan's affairs."

Amanda swallowed, steeling her nerve. "Please, Rebecca, I was only curious. Ever since he arrived, Lord Adræfan's brought more questions than he has answers. Everyone guesses and gossips about it but no one really says anything—or knows anything, for that matter. Except your council, of course, but they never admit to anything anyway. It's been all closed-door meetings and clandestine conversation, and now you've dispatched more scouts than I thought we even had, and put all the guards on active duty—everyone's so tense around here! It's like we're all waiting for something to happen, only half of us don't know what it is, and the half that does almost seems afraid of it." Then it seemed Amanda realized how her tongue had run away from her. She halted her speech a moment, reining in both her voice and her emotions, before continuing in what she hoped was a much more rational tone.

"I just want to know what's going on, Rebecca. I want to know what's got everybody cowering, or praying, or preparing, and why you've started wearing your sword all the time even though this is holy ground—Adræfan too! I know it has all to do with him and his scrolls, and I'm not too young to understand it, Rebecca. Honest I'm not. I understand fear when I see it in the eyes of the priests and nuns, and I understand sadness in the Druids and anger in the pagans, and the deliverance I see in Adræfan's eyes and whatever memories you're guarding that flash sometimes in yours—I understand all that! But I don't know why, Rebecca. I only wanted to know why." Amanda's words suddenly ran dry and left her bereft, forcing her to stand and face her teacher without the crutch of argument.

All the while Rebecca had remained seated, regarding her student with an almost calm curiosity and, perhaps, a subtle slip of sympathy. Amanda, her frustration spent, found herself once again unable to remain brave before that stare.

After what seemed like an eternity Rebecca finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Amanda. You'll find that when you're older and with students of your own… well, you'll find that, more than anything, you wish to protect them. Not just from the realities of immortality, but from the realities—the horrors, rather—of life. When you first came to me, I'll bet you thought this abbey, this sanctuary, was a paradise. I know you did, because when I was first a student, living in a sanctuary and learning from the greatest of teachers… I thought that place was paradise, too. And Adræfan, many names ago, at the feet of that same teacher, in a sanctuary before my time, also thought the same. But his paradise fell eventually, and the Master fled and built an new one, and I called it Heaven and Adræfan… he told me once, when we were studying Canaanite Hebrew, that now he knows how Adam felt, living out his days tending to beautiful gardens that weren't Eden. I didn't know what he meant until I watched my own Eden burning down." Rebecca's eyes were pained, haunted. Yet still she continued:

"He built another, with my help, the way Adræfan helped him long before. And he taught others there, who called it Paradise, and I knew then what Adræfan felt. And so I left—a lot quicker than when Adræfan first left me. I left them to their paradise and dared to call the greatest—the wisest ever among us—well, I dared to call him a naïve fool. And he agreed with me, admitting that perhaps he was, because each sanctuary that be built pales in comparison to the one he himself was a student in, that met it's own end several incarnations before Adræfan's." Now she sighed, more resigned than pained.

"Yet I see now that he wasn't trying to reclaim Heaven, but to merely offer a taste of it to those who must came after him. And naïve or not, he adhered to this purpose for his own secret reasons until the day he died… until he chose to martyr himself to save the last of his precious sanctuaries." Was that bitterness? Couldn't have been… "And that place still stands, though it's glory dims and its secrets fade with each passing century, a crumbling monument to the ideal he died for and yet, with his death, signaled the death of that ideal." A tired sigh. An elongated blink. Amanda stood transfixed—she had never heard such things from her teacher before.

"When I heard that he had died… heard how he died… I thought to honor him, to preserve that ideal. I came back here, to this quaint island and its rolling greens and expansive forests that I'd first visited at his side. I built this abbey, this sanctuary—and perhaps it was naïve, and foolish of me, too. But I have trained students here. Preserved a sliver of the Old Ways here. I have used my influence to turn the tides of governments, to do as my teacher had done before me to keep the sanctuary safe. And so far it has worked out quite well. Until now." Rebecca was calm again—if ever you could claim she wasn't before. Amanda, however, got chills.

"The sun is setting on this sanctuary, Amanda. And I cannot stop it. I can delay it only, and even barely that. I will soon watch, powerless, as my own sanctuary falls, as my master did countless times before me. Our fate is closely linked to that of our good King. We will not weather well the crown's changing hands, for war will follow on its heels. You have not seen war, Amanda. Not truly. And I would spare you from it, if I could. I can only hope that I am satisfied enough with your progress to turn you loose upon the world before the end marches to our doorstep." Amanda's eyes had grown wide with horror, but Rebecca didn't stop there.

"That's the secret we've been keeping, Amanda. That's why everyone is afraid, or sad, or angry. That's why you claim you see certain deliverance in Adræfan's eyes. He knows what is to come, as do I. And he and I are preparing for it, in the way that only those who've lived it before ever can. I hope you are far gone from this place when our last day fades into twilight, for the darkness will be damning, and there won't be another dawn."

Rebecca delivered this speech, this lament, this prophecy and this doom, all while sitting behind her desk, speaking plainly and without preamble. Amanda stood, enraptured, and heard her teacher speak of things she had never even hinted at before. Amanda felt traitorously young, standing there like that. She knew that, as much as she wanted to be considered an adult in the eyes of her teacher, she was still very much a child. And, as much as she knew she wanted to grow up, she knew that Rebecca desperately wanted to keep her exactly the way she was. And looking down into Rebecca's eyes right then, she knew that she couldn't begrudge her teacher that wish.

Perhaps that's why Rebecca never used any of Amanda's aliases throughout the years. From the very beginning until the day she died, her student was Amanda to her still.

"And Adræfan? He came here to warn us?"

Rebecca sighed and ran a tired hand across her eyes and through her hair. "Adræfan came here for our protection. He has information that puts his life in jeopardy—information that, if brought to light and proven, would greatly benefit the king."

"So he came here, so that we could protect him while he helps our king, and so in turn helps to protect us?"

Rebecca couldn't help the smile. "I suppose that's one way to look at it, yes."

"And, you will protect Adræfan when they come for him? You will help him reveal whatever's on those scrolls to help the king and save his life?"

The smile fell from Rebecca's face. "His information will be made known. It's in the hands of fate whether or not that helps the king."

Amanda didn't like the sound of that. "And Adræfan?"

"Adræfan knows that he will not leave this sanctuary alive."

Amanda strangled a gasp of shock and horror. "But, this is holy ground! They—"

Rebecca raised a hand for silence. "They will kill him, Amanda," she interrupted. "But only after he has spoken his peace. He will not flee with his life, as he knows he can, because he believes in the cause he is dying for. I will do all in my power to prevent them from beheading him, but that is the extent of the protection that I can offer him. He knew that when he came here, and that was all he was prepared to ask of me. If all goes well they will let him speak before they slaughter him, and maybe—just maybe—he will be heard and it won't all have been for naught.

"And when he revives long after they're gone, we secret him away to the shores of the sea, and bare him across in a boat I am having made for him even as we speak, and he'll leave this isle under cloak of darkness, never to return while those that remember his name and face still breathe, to await the coming darkness someplace else, far away from here."

Amanda was still young then. She couldn't help it as the tears formed. "And he would do this? He would die for us?"

Rebecca nodded gravely. "He fights to stave off the inevitable end. He knows as well as I that when these walls crumble there will be no other sanctuaries. He would die to preserve what little we have left."

"What do you mean, no others?" Amanda couldn't grasp the concept. "When this place is razed, you can go and build another, like your teacher did."

Rebecca sadly, slowly shook her head. "You are so young, Amanda. Though I think what I regret even more than that, is how you chanced to become immortal as the light on this era fades. The world has changed too much for us to survive any longer. It will no longer support the ideals of our sanctuaries. The Christian faith that is slowly but surely conquering the world will not abide us to survive amongst them."

"That's not true! We can be Christians, too!"

"Ah, but you see, we cannot also be immortals."

Amanda opened her mouth to respond to that, but the words ran dry and she faltered. Finally she closed her mouth and returned her gaze to the floor.

"It is too dangerous for us now, to be so publicly immortal. We cannot cower before these Christians on holy ground, for we will only serve to trap ourselves by our own code, and they will slaughter us defenseless in their march across existence to eradicate all those who do not see as they do. There cannot be sanctuaries while there exists Christianity, and alas you'll find that their religion will far outlast our own."

"And the king… keeps the Christians at bay." Amanda concluded, as if in a daze.

Rebecca nodded. "He alone stems their tide and keeps a balance in our kingdom—the last free kingdom in Britannia to eventually fall to these conquerors. When his reign ends… our end will be swift."

"You speak as though you have no hope."

Rebecca smiled then, a sad yet genuine smile. She stood from her desk then and came around to stand before her student. "But I do have hope, Amanda." Then gently, maternally, she brushed a few stray wisps of hair out of Amanda's face, smoothing them back into place with a warm and tender hand. "I have you."

* * *

_Somewhere in Paris_

Methos and Amanda were walking as the sky continued to brighten after the rainstorm. The gray haze and Paris fog shone around them like a false dawn. In another hour or so the sun would set, and it would get colder.

They had been enjoying a relatively comfortable and contemplative silence after Amanda finished her narration. She seemed lost in afterthoughts, looking back on that time with a different perspective. She was a millennium older, after all. Methos, for his part, seemed to be dwelling somewhere as well. Whether or not he was reliving that time, or perhaps times far older, Amanda could not tell. He had so many memories to choose from…

Wherever his thoughts had wandered, it didn't affect his feet any. He led them on a meandering path through the streets of Paris as she spoke, but here in the silence she discerned that they were gradually winding their way back to his apartment. He knew these alleyways and back streets by heart, it seemed. Amanda smirked to herself. _Typical Methos_.

"I never knew just how much Rebecca told you."

She was startled out of her musings by Methos's sudden voice. She half shrugged in response, hugging herself. "That was the most she ever spoke about… things."

"I'm surprised she said even that much."

Amanda was silent a moment, thoughtful. "Well quite frankly, I don't even know why she did."

"What do you mean?"

"Why she told me—why she believed… She said I was her hope."

"And you were," Methos affirmed without hesitation.

Amanda snorted a bitter laugh. "Don't patronize me."

"I'm not," Methos defended. "You were the last of Rebecca's official students. Sure there were others she taught to fight, or taught to heal, or maybe a language here or there. But you were the last one to know what 'sanctuary' means. You were her hope for the future, Amanda. You always were."

Amanda was silent a moment, digesting that. "Well, some hope I turned out to be," she mused at last, both petulant and scathing. "What have I done in a thousand years?" She kicked fiercely at a pebble in the street. "What makes me worthy of her? Of hearing all that?"

Methos smiled, and it was a genuine smile. "You survived."

Amanda was silent for a long while after that.

"I think, looking back, she was afraid for me."

Methos gave her a sidelong glance.

"I mean then, in that moment. We were all awaiting the arrival of the King's men, and none of us knew what would happen when they got there. And Rebecca's ideal… well, there was a lot of room for error. I think she was afraid for me; that something might happen. That she couldn't protect me because of the holy ground."

Methos seemed to take his time formulating a response to that. "Perhaps," he conceded eventually. "But you said yourself, how you noticed that Rebecca and I wore our swords, even on holy ground. Do you really think she would have let anything happen to you, holy ground or no?"

Amanda was aghast. "You think she would have fought? In the abbey?"

"What do _you_ think?"

"I think she wore the sword for effect. People always think twice when someone is armed."

"This is true…"

"Oh no, Methos. You don't get off that easily. Tell me, would she have fought those guards if it came to it? Even on holy ground?"

Methos was silent again, taking his time. "Let me ask you a question. You fought Luthor on the ruins of that abbey. MacLeod killed him there. Did the ground lose its consecration when the buildings crumbled?"

Amanda had no answer to that. After a pause she closed her jaw and jogged to catch up to the eldest immortal. "Methos!"

"Yes, Amanda sweet?"

"Do you have any idea how what you just said sounded to me?"

"Why no, Amanda. I'm not you. How you interpret things is not within the bounds of my humble speculation."

Amanda shoved herself in front of him, stopping his forward momentum with an outstretched hand. "Cut the shit, Methos. I'm serious. You make it sound like it's no big deal for immortals to kill on holy ground. Talk to me!"

Methos laughed outright. Not necessarily cruel, but far from polite either. "You were there that day. You saw what happened. You tell me."

* * *

_The Abbey__  
A few days later_

"You're leaving your right side wide open!" Rebecca admonished.

"I'm covering my lower left," Amanda protested as she tried to adjust her stance.

Rebecca smirked, snaked a hand through Amanda's defenses, thrust out a foot, and in two seconds Amanda was sprawled on her back, her right leg bent awkwardly beneath her and her own right arm being used to pin her down. Rebecca twisted that arm just slightly and Amanda cried out.

"Yes, you're lower left was covered just fine."

One more twist and an outcry from the helpless student and Rebecca released her hold. Amanda curled into the fetal position until her strained muscles healed themselves. Then she sat up, and Rebecca squatted down to face her.

"You should have let me use my sword," Amanda pouted. "I'm much better when I have my sword."

"Yes, but in the course of combat your opponent may strip you of your sword. What will you do then, hmm? Talk him into leaving your head attached?"

Amanda groaned and rolled her eyes. "Well if I get good enough with my sword then my opponent won't be able to take it from me, eh?"

Rebecca nodded in seeming accord. "And if you break the blade?"

Amanda couldn't answer that. Rebecca nodded again, standing up.

"For every excuse you give me, Amanda, I can give you a reason better. You must learn these skills if you want—"

"A shot at the prize?"

But then their banter was interrupted by the sudden, intruding sensation of an approaching immortal, and Amanda stood as well.

"To keep your head," Methos corrected, approaching the sparring pair. Rebecca nodded to him. Amanda wouldn't meet his gaze.

"He's right, Amanda," Rebecca insisted, using an elegant finger to tip Amanda's chin up and so forced her student meet her eyes.

Amanda merely nodded.

Their moment was interrupted by the sound of Methos unsheathing his sword. Amanda looked to him, wide-eyed. He nodded to Rebecca. She nodded back, and together the two moved a few paces away.

"Rebecca!"

"Watch and learn, kid," Methos called out. He stood in a fighting stance, blade held at the ready. Rebecca raised her arms, taking a defensive stance in the unarmed combat form she was trying to teach Amanda.

Suddenly Methos lunged for Rebecca, his sword making a clean swipe for her neck. Rebecca easily dodged, deflecting the flat part of his blade off of her forearms. She then backed out of his range.

Methos tried again, this time with an offside shot. Rebecca ducked down and to the opposite side, watching the blade sail over her head. His sword arm was outstretched as he was fully committed to the shot. Rebecca reached up and grabbed that arm as it was retreating above her head. She pulled him off balance, using him as the fulcrum from which she hoisted herself into a standing position. Rebecca then let go of his arm and found herself standing behind him.

Before Methos could recover his balance, Rebecca kicked him hard in the rear, sending him sprawling forward. He recovered by tucking into a forward roll.

Rebecca had anticipated that, however. Immediately after kicking him, she launched herself forward as well. She executed a low handspring along side him, and since she was moving faster, she managed to get ahead of him.

Methos recovered from the roll in a crouch position, still holding his sword. Rebecca was ready. She too was crouched from the end of the handspring. She braced herself on her arms and kicked Methos squarely in the jaw. The force of the impact sent him tumbling backwards again.

Rebecca didn't wait. She lunged for him, cartwheeling. Her hands landed one on his wrist and the other on his sword. Before Methos had the chance to regain his bearings, Rebecca had wrenched the sword from his grasp. She came out of her cartwheel triumphantly holding the blade. Methos had barely pushed himself into a sitting position before he found himself staring down the length of his own steel.

"You see," Rebecca call out to her student. "A sword does not make you invincible. Adræfan had a sword, and I took it from him. From this position, I could deliver a killing blow if I desired." Her pointed gaze lingered on her speechless student a moment longer. Then she backed off and stood up, lowering the sword. She offered Methos a hand up, which he readily accepted. "Thank you for your assistance."

"No problem, any time," he groaned, massaging his jaw as the bones continued to mend. "Did you have to kick me so hard?"

Rebecca laughed. "Do you have any idea how long I've waited to be invited to kick your jaw in?"

Methos knew she was only half kidding. "My sword?"

Rebecca nodded once, deeply, in acknowledgement. She spun the sword around in her hand and presented it to Methos hilt first, the blade coming to balance on the crook of her arm. Methos took it from her with a grunt of thanks and sheathed it home.

"That was remarkable!" Amanda cheered, finally finding her voice again.

"No, that was necessary," Rebecca corrected. "You must learn how to do that yourself if you hope to survive beyond these walls."

"Listen to her, kid," Methos added. "Your life depends on it."

Amanda shook her head breathlessly. "I don't think I'll ever be able to do that."

Methos snorted. "With an attitude like that, you never will."

"Milady!"

Their moment was interrupted by a shout from on high. Rebecca spun around to face the northern wall. One of the lookouts on the parapet was waving his arms.

"One of our scouts is returning!"

"Open the gates!" Rebecca ordered. A heavy clanking and then a groaning sound and she knew her orders were being obeyed. She grabbed her sword from where she had discarded it earlier for her session with Amanda. She reattached the sheathed weapon to the frog at her belt and secured it while striding purposely over to the gate. She stood tall, watching as the scout appeared on the horizon. When he was close enough for her to identify him—and see that he was uninjured—she stepped back. The scout entered the abbey in a flurry of hooves.

"M-M-Milady!" the scout panted as he dismounted.

"Calm yourself, Samuel. Catch your breath." Stable hands came forth to tend the animal. It was led away.

"Milady, the kings men—" the scout panted some more.

"What about them?" Rebecca demanded as Methos and Amanda drew near, watching intently.

"A party of them—" _pant_, _pant_, "half a dozen—" _pant_, _pant_, "riding steadily—" _pant_, "less then a league behind me."

Rebecca's eyes flashed. She turned from the exhausted scout. "Alert our riders!" she called out to the guards on the wall. "Use the falcons! I want to know if that party is truly alone!" There was a flurry of activity along the wall.

The scout finally stood up straighter, his breathing at last under control. "Milady?"

Rebecca turned sharply to face him.

"The party, they're riding under the banner of Æthelbert."

Rebecca left the scout and walked to Methos, who was already moving towards her.

"He'll be in the company of Æthelbald's men, someone Æthelbald trusts to verify my death. There'll probably be another, an attendant to such a man, probably a Christian and of the cloth. The other three will be with Æthelbert. He'll have chosen from his ranks only those he trusts and so offset the presence of his brother's men. Bodyguards perhaps, but more likely soldiers he has served with."

Rebecca nodded. "Will they be alone?"

"Probably. They desire my death most of all. The demolition of this sanctuary is still a prize unlooked for. If they do not kill me here, or I do not go with them willingly, then they will stand guard to ensure that I do not escape, and one of them will return to Æthelbald. Only then will an army be sent, and it would be done without the consent of the king. That means it would be small, consisting only of those loyal to Æthelbald. They would then wait out of arrow's reach and lay a siege. Of course, they don't know the formidable strength of your standing army."

Rebecca ignored his smirk as he said that last bit. "We are entirely self-sufficient here. A siege would not threaten us."

"No, but it would violate the laws of sanctuary."

"They would abandon the siege when they noticed that it was having no effect. Æthelbald's men maybe loyal, but a lengthy stay away from designed duty would attract too much attention, and they don't love him enough for that." Methos nodded.

"And if Æthelbald's solution to that problem is to order an attack?"

"We would survive an attack of an army of equal or smaller size, provided our fortifications are not breached."

Methos snorted. "I cannot attest to whether or not Æthelbald is on the good side of the siege engineers."

"It doesn't matter," Rebecca negated. "I will fight only as a last resort, and then only to protect the civilians. This place is still a sanctuary. I do not want a blood bath on our hands."

Methos's demeanor hardened in an instant. "Agreed."

"Our best chance lies in treating with them."

Methos nodded gravely and finished her unspoken thought. "And giving them what they want."

"But, that's you!"

Both turned to see Amanda, standing not far off and obviously within earshot. She had gone pale, and had a horrified look on her face. "In order to save this sanctuary, they'll demand your head!"

"Get inside, Amanda!" Rebecca ordered crossly, ignoring what her student had said—and indeed the emotional state she was in. "Round up all the civilians. Tell them to gather in the great hall!"

Amanda stood frozen.

"GO!"

Finally, seemingly with great effort, Amanda nodded, almost absentmindedly as she backpedaled. Finally she turned on her heels and fled. Rebecca's peripheral vision saw dozens of birds flying from the parapets.

"Rebecca—"

"I suggest you get your affairs in order, Lord Adræfan." Rebecca unsheathed her sword and held it up, inspecting the length of the blade with a critical eye. Methos caught his own reflection in the steel right before it caught the sunlight and flashed brilliantly in his eyes. He blinked, clearing his vision, while Rebecca announced: "Your time has just run out."

* * *

_The Streets of Paris_

"I remember overhearing the two of you discuss your options," Amanda said at length. "And how you discussed the possibility of fighting."

"We were sitting on a powder keg," Methos reminded her. "It could have gone a hundred different ways, most of them unpleasant."

"What were the pleasant ways?"

"Well, they could have decided it wasn't worth their effort and turned around and left, but that wasn't very likely."

Amanda laughed. "Rebecca would have fought them though, if she had to."

Methos sobered. "I know."

"But would she have? I mean—Methos, she had an army with her. She would have ordered them to fight, yes. But would she have fought herself, on holy ground, if push came to shove?"

Methos seemed to weigh his response carefully. "You should know Rebecca well enough to answer that yourself."

Amanda surprised herself by coming to the conclusion in no time. She groaned, dismayed by her own shortsightedness. "Of course she would have fought them! But she wouldn't have met them on holy ground. No, the abbey was sanctuary and holy ground or not she wouldn't have wanted fighting there!"

Methos smirked to himself, as though he were privy to some private joke.

Amanda grew more serious. "Rebecca would have done her fighting outside the gates. She would have met them head on."

"Now was that so hard?"

"Well, only because you deliberately misled me!"

"I did not!" Methos protested. "All I did was try to reassure you that Rebecca wasn't going to sit idly by while her sanctuary crumbled down around her ears." Then quietly: "she didn't before."

Amanda was affected by his seeming change in mood, his admission from a past he didn't want to speak about. She didn't speak, and Methos recovered quickly.

"You're the one who assumed she would fight on holy ground."

"And you didn't correct me!"

"Only because it's more fun to watch you come to your own conclusions."

Amanda scowled. "You always did like having fun at my expense."

Methos sighed, exasperated. "What do you want me to say, Amanda? Do you want me to tell you that in all honesty I don't have a damned clue what Rebecca would have done? Do you want me to tell you that if Æthelbert had come with an army and the abbey defenses fell and the massacre moved onto abbey grounds that Rebecca would or would not have taken her sword and defended her people, the rules be damned? I hope not, because the answer is I haven't the foggiest."

Silence was welcome after Methos's outburst. Unfortunately Amanda needed more.

"You really think she would have killed mortals on holy ground to protect her sanctuary?"

Methos was silent for a moment, then: "In Babylon, Rebecca led the refugees out of the Sanctuary… led the people out of the city as it burned. She fought like a hellion then, to protect the women and children who followed her while the men fought against the invading Hittite army. But by then she wasn't on holy ground. Then in Wessex, at St. Anne's… We'd already lost our teacher, you understand. The sanctuary in Paris was tainted by that, and dwindled—despite Darius's best efforts. That abbey was the last true sanctuary left, and she knew that when it fell, there would be no others. I honestly didn't know what she would do when confronted with the end. I'm not even sure _she_ did, until it finally came to it."

Amanda was silent for a while, contemplating what Methos had said… thinking on Rebecca and what happened that day… and what could have happened.

It didn't occur to her to ask Methos how he knew so much of one of the many falls of Babylon.

"That must have been one of the longest waits of your life," she mused at last. They were approaching Methos's apartment now. "Waiting for the Æthelbald 's men, I mean. And his army if he had one."

"Sometimes," he answered as he fished his keys out of his pocket.

"Sometimes?"

"Sometimes it was one of the shortest."

Methos unlocked the front door and led the way back up to his apartment. He keyed them through that door too, and Amanda found herself standing in Methos's kitchen/dining room for the second time that day.

"Were you ever worried that they would actually behead you?" she asked. The room seemed very large all of a sudden, and feeling isolated she hugged herself.

"That would have been a sight, wouldn't it," Methos droned as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. He bit the cap off with his teeth and offered the bottle to Amanda, who demurred. "Imagine the religious uproar: the witch of the abbey survives vicious lightning strikes just as the traitor-heretic is beheaded."

"I'll bet your quickening would have ripped the stones from their foundation."

"You know, just because I'm old it doesn't mean that I'm powerful."

"Like hell."

"Only one way to find out."

"You've got a sick sense of humor, you know that?"

"So I've been told."

Amanda had never really maintained eye contact with him throughout their banter. Now she didn't look up from the floor, but continued to hug herself protectively. The acerbic humor left Methos's demeanor.

"Amanda?"

"You really shouldn't joke like that," she admonished him. She rocked back and forth a bit on her heels. "You've always flouted your will to live so don't go joking like that."

Methos put his beer down on the counter and went over to where she stood. "Hey now," he entreated, voice striking in its gentle tones as he came and stood before her, grabbing her shoulders with his hands and forcing her to face him.

Even so, Amanda still stood staring at the floor.

"What's all this, then?"

"Promise me." The words sounded jagged, like they had been torn from her unwillingly and had broken along the way. Methos knew he had to tread very carefully here.

"Promise you what?"

Amanda finally tilted her head up, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Promise me you'll stay alive."

Methos blinked, stunned.

"You disappeared so suddenly right after Christmas, and I know things haven't been right with you and MacLeod. I know—and I know how much it's tearing you apart. I saw it then, back at Joe's that horrible night. And again today, at Alexa's grave—"

Methos's breath hitched, the sudden mention of Alexa slipped so casually into Amanda's explanation, a knife between the ribs.

Amanda hardly noted it. Instead she grew bolder, her eyes taking on a familiar determined glint that had been sorely lacking this last little while. "Alexa died, and then you lost your immortal brothers, and your student… And MacLeod… What are you holding onto, Methos? Are you staying alive now only so that there's someone who'll plant fresh flowers at her grave?"

Methos bit down and stifled a curse as he looked away. He would have pushed off from her—his hands had still be resting on her shoulders, but the movement was jerky, uncoordinated. It accomplished little more than to allow his arms to fall gracelessly to his side. It was as though Amanda's words had uncorked something that had been coiled painfully tight inside him, and he was powerless to stem the surging tide of that sudden release. Methos might have actually started crying then—

—If he didn't suddenly find his arms full of Amanda. She threw herself into his embrace and wrapped her arms fiercely about his neck, nearly choking him.

"Promise me you'll stay alive," she begged into his collarbone. "If you're running out of reasons to live then I'll give you one. Promise me."

"Why?" Methos finally asked, his voice husky, choked on the tears he hadn't shed. He felt Amanda tense in his embrace and knew that she understood his question.

"Because I know you'll keep your word," she answered, proving him right. "You'd keep a promise you made to Rebecca's last surviving student."

"Why bind me to this?" His voice was barely a whisper, each sound etched in anguish.

In contrast, Amanda's voice was sure and strong, pure in her convictions. "Because you're all I have left." Then she pushed herself away and looked Methos in the eye. Her eyes had dried some, and it was the glint of steel that shimmered in them now instead of tears. "You're all I have left of her, now. Sure her quickening lives on in Duncan's head, and yes there are those like Grace Chandal and Marcus Constantine who were close to her. But you were her _brother_, Methos. Or so she said. You're the last of her that I have left and I'll be _damned_ if I let you go without a fight." She pulled him close again, burying her face in the space between his shoulder and his ear. He felt her breath fall warm on his neck as she spoke. "Promise me, Methos. Don't leave me here alone."

"If you knew the things Rebecca knew—the things MacLeod knows… You would not ask me this."

"You are all I have left of Rebecca—of what I had that was good and happy in this world… of paradise… I don't need to know anything else. I don't care. So promise me, Methos. Please."

But Methos couldn't—or wouldn't, perhaps. "You never seemed to care so much before." A tossed-off comment. It was meant to hurt her, meant to make her stop demanding something he couldn't give.

Amanda pulled away, not fooled an inch. "Why is it so hard?" She demanded. "Why do you try and hurt me? To keep from having to lie to me?"

Methos recoiled. Every instinct was screaming at him—fight or flight, and Amanda's insistence had left him with little option. "Listen, kid, I seem to recall a time not long ago when you were all set to take my head. Now you're making out like my survival is essential. Well I'm sorry, but my life _and_ death are my own business and none of yours."

Amanda winced, stung. Methos gestured half-heartedly and turned away in disgust. He paced towards the window and saw Amanda's reflection in the glass, regarding him intently.

"You and I were never close," she said at last. "We weren't even really friends. You were just my teacher's brother, someone I ran into a few times through the years, good for a few drinks and a laugh but not much else." She moved a few steps closer. "Then Kalas happened, and we started seeing more of each other. And yeah, there was a point where I thought you would take my head to save the woman you loved." Her voice fell sarcastic at the end, almost patronizing. Could you blame me? hung unsaid between them.

Methos tensed and his breath caught. He braced himself against the windowpane, felt the cool of the glass seep into his fingers even as tendrils of fog swelled out across the pane from underneath his palm.

Amanda paced a step closer. "But I was wrong, and I admitted that."

When Methos didn't respond she began walking, coming closer to him as she spoke. "I'd like to think that we got closer after that. Especially when we had to save Duncan from himself last year."

Methos shook his head, tensing at the memory. Keane. His relationship with MacLeod, while never exactly solid, has always been clear; convoluted, but clear—if that made any sense at all. Now all was cast in shadow, and neither of them knew how to shine a candle into it, or where they could even begin. Methos was still surprised by how much the stagnation pained him.

"Why do you think I came to you, Methos? I could have called Richie, or Connor, or any other of Duncan's friends."

"Because I was in Paris?" His tone was sarcastic.

Amanda ignored it. "I didn't know that when I decided to look for you," she informed him. "I came to you because I knew you'd help me… that you'd help _me_, to help MacLeod."

"And you don't think Connor would have helped?" he asked venomously as he spun around. However, he had stopped tracking her movements in the glass, and nearly jumped in surprise when he found himself face to face with her. He turned halfway away and leaned into the windowpane.

"Connor is Duncan's family," she said, not quite dismissively. "And whether you like it or not, you're mine. You're all I have. That's why I went to you instead of Connor, in case..." her voice trailed off, mired in what-ifs.

"In case Keane won?" Methos's eyes were closed, and exhaustion laced his voice.

Amanda didn't bother to answer him. Instead she wrapped her arms around him again, though this time she wasn't clinging to him for her own support. No, this time she enveloped him in what had to have been one of the tenderest embraces he'd ever known.

He stiffened against it.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" she asked, not moving. Her chin was resting on his shoulder, but his face was turned away from hers. He was watching the sun sink lower on the horizon. Amanda's face was caught there, in the fading light.

"Why do you pull away from us?" she continued. "Why are you so determined to be alone?"

"I'm too schizophrenic to ever be truly alone," he answered, an ill-timed attempt at humor. Another way of pushing Amanda away, if insults didn't do the trick.

"What are you afraid of?" Amanda obviously ignored it.

Methos took a deep, shuddering breath. Amanda hadn't moved.

"Do you want to know the truth?" he asked finally. He felt her nod against him. "Back in the abbey, when they demanded Rebecca release me to their custody for my execution, I've never been more frightened than in those moments before Rebecca spoke."

Amanda seemed to take her time considering this. Then suddenly it seemed as though she reached some type of resolution, because she pulled away from him, and she was smiling.

"Come on," she directed, pulling at his hands and trying to drag him away from the window.

"Where are we going?" Methos was too shocked to convey much else.

"You'll see."

"Amanda…"

But she only smiled brighter, and added a mysterious gleam to her eyes. "Come with me," she encouraged, leading him towards the door.

"Where?"

"Trust me."

Methos, too full of too many conflicting emotions to offer much in the way of resistance or protest, simply allowed himself to be led. Amanda shoved a coat into his arms and made sure she had her car keys before dragging him half-willingly through his apartment door.

* * *


	9. Dance of diplomacy

_Paris_

Amanda had managed to drag Methos out of his apartment, down the stairs, and out of the building. She held his hand as she pulled him towards her car, giddy almost, like a little girl dragging a friend to a hidden clubhouse where childish secrets could be shared. Methos allowed himself to be enveloped by her sudden good cheer.

"Where are we going?" he asked as the car pulled away from the curb.

"You'll see," she answered cryptically as she merged in with the flow of traffic.

"I want to know before I see," Methos protested. While he was willing to follow Amanda's lead, he wasn't too comfortable doing so blindly.

Amanda snickered delightedly. "That's too bad, Methos. You'll just have to wait and find out when we get there."

"I could always jump out of the car…" Methos threatened half-heartedly. His hand was already resting on the door release.

Amanda silently reached over and hit the automatic door locks.

"Cute," Methos noted sarcastically.

Amanda merely grinned as she flicked the turn signal and made a right-hand turn. A few blocks passed in silence.

"What's so important that you can't tell me about it?" Methos asked, honestly curious. His hand was no longer holding the release. Now his fingers were strumming absently on the side of the door. He hadn't moved to release the automatic lock, even though the button was within easy reach of his tapping fingers.

"Awww, what's the matter, Methos?" Amanda teased. "Don't like being left out of the loop?"

"There's only two of us, Amanda. That makes it more of a line. But I don't like being kept in the dark."

Amanda smirked devilishly. "I know the feeling."

Silence.

A few more blocks and then a left turn.

"We're going back the way we came," Methos observed as the scenery scrolled by. Then he turned and faced Amanda. "You're taking me back to the cemetery."

Amanda smiled wickedly. She laughed and bells tinkled and he was reminded once again of a much younger Rebecca.

Then his heart caught in his throat.

"You're taking me to _her_, aren't you."

It wasn't a question. Amanda just continued to smile.

"Amanda?" Methos's voice was pained.

She spared him a sideways glance before returning her eyes to the road. The entrance to the cemetery came into view ahead on their right.

"Amanda!" That pain rose nearly to panic. "Why did we come here?"

"I asked you to trust me, Methos," Amanda reminded him plainly as the car pulled in to the small cemetery parking lot.

"But why here? Why now?"

Amanda found a parking space and killed the engine. She undid her seatbelt and turned to face Methos. His eyes were wide and green, Adam Pierson out of his element.

"Because I have a hunch," Amanda explained. She reached over and pressed the button for Methos's seatbelt to release. It flew out of the attachment and Methos flinched away from it. "Now come on," she continued, reaching over to hit the unlock button on the car door. "I want to take you to Rebecca's grave." She hit the button and the doors unlocked with a deafening CLUNK. Methos jumped at the sound. Amanda blinked slowly, cocking her head to the side just slightly as she regarded him sitting there. She looked so much like Rebecca then that it actually hurt.

"I know exactly where Rebecca's grave is," Methos snarled. "I don't need you to show me."

"Oh I know," Amanda replied. "And I'm not _showing_ you, I'm_taking_ you." Amanda opened the door and climbed out of the car.

Methos's eyes tracked her as she came around the front of the car and made to open his door for him. Then, before she could lift the handle, his hand shot forward and hit the door locks, more to be petulant than anything else. Amanda scowled exaggeratingly at him and fished for her keys. She unlocked the door manually and pulled the door open.

"Cute," she echoed, the sarcasm falling flat.

Methos didn't say anything until he finally climbed out of the car. "Tell me why we're here, Amanda," he asked tiredly. "Why here, why now? What is so important that we had to come all the way back here?"

Her answer was short, succinct, and cut through his heart like a serrated blade.

"Rebecca."

Methos's breath caught and he shut his eyes. Amanda gently reached out and took his hand.

"You've never been to visit her, have you."

It wasn't a question. Methos barely shook his head 'no' before opening his eyes. He saw Amanda regarding him intently. She gave his hand a small squeeze.

"I didn't think so."

"Whether or not I visit Rebecca is _my_ choice," Methos declared in a low, cold voice as he ripped his hand away from hers. His eyes were hard and blazing in his anger. Amanda reflexively took a half-step away from him. Her brown eyes were wide and questioning, seemingly innocent of the thousand-plus years of living that they had endured. Methos sighed loudly in aggravated frustration.

"Why have you never chosen to visit her?" The statement was plain, even simple. No accusations and no meaningful inflection. Just a question, an innocently curious question that threw Methos's own words back into his face like a well-placed fist. He sputtered slightly, reeling, before turning sharply away.

His gaze fell across the entrance to the cemetery. "Aren't you just going to tell me why?" he asked, his voice defeated and bitter. "You've done a pretty good job of that so far."

Amanda blinked.

_Touché_

"It's not like you haven't put me in my place too, _Adam_," she reminded him as she stepped closer.

Methos turned in surprise when he heard the name.

"Adam," she said again. "The man who chose Eve over Eden."

"Careful, Leaswene," he warned.

Amanda shook her head.

"That's what Rebecca told me once. When I asked her about you, when we met up again after the abbey fell. She said that once you chose Eve over Eden. I knew she was referring to Sanctuary, but I didn't know what she meant by that statement. I think I do now." Amanda paused, her knees knocked together and she clasped her hands, trying to maintain courage and keep from fidgeting. "I know you did something, Methos," she continued bravely. "I know you made a choice, somewhere along the line, and now you can never have your Sanctuary back." A beat. "Your paradise." She took a step closer. "I think Rebecca understood it. After St. Anne fell and there would be no more sanctuaries. I think, whatever it was, she understood, _Methos_. And she forgave you."

Methos's eyes widened then narrowed. The look he fixed her with would have withered all the flowers in the cemetery. "What do you know?" he spat through clenched teeth. "You know nothing! You may look like Rebecca when you stare at me, adopting her mannerisms like a good little mimic. And you can sound like her when you try and talk to me about things you know nothing about simply because you knew _her_ so well that you can fake it. Well I won't fall for that anymore, _Leaswene!_ You aren't her, do you hear me? _You. Are. NOT. **HER!**_ You're just a student, the last to see a Sanctuary and so you think that makes you an authority. Well were you there when Ur crumbled to the ground? Did you watch the fires spread when Babylon was razed? Where you there, drowning in the streets when Alexandria was consumed? Did you stand by The Master when he gave his head for Paris, noble and futile sacrifice that it was? Were you even there, in St. Anne's, when the Christians finally came to beat down the doors? You know nothing of Eden, _child!_ You know nothing of choices and you know _nothing_of _ME!_"

"You don't think I know that?" Amanda shot right back, all tense and brittle, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You don't think I know how I'm nothing like Rebecca? How I'm just one of her charity cases that happened to be in the right place at the wrong time? Don't you think I know how I can never measure up to her? How she died without my even oncemaking her proud of me? You think I don't know what Rebecca was, and how I can't even hold a candle to that?" She choked on a sob—couldn't help it.

"Maybe you're right," Amanda forced herself to continue. "Maybe I really don't know anything of Eden—how could I? I was just a thief who learned to spread her legs and get wealthy men to lower their guard. Then I was just a student, one who came too late but didn't even catch the joke because Rebecca assumed—correctly, don't you know—I was too naïve—just too plain stupid to handle the punch line." The tears were flowing freely now. Amanda sniffled loudly—unconsciously, and swatted at her eyes with a vicious hand.

"But I _do_ know what it's like to be a let-down to the only person in this world whose opinions mattered. I know what it's like to avoid returning phone calls because you're afraid to hear the disappointment in their voice. I know what it's like to know you're a failure at everything you had ever hoped to be but can get passed the fact by gleefully parading around like you had no standards in the first place." Amanda seemed trapped then, suddenly blindsided by her own runaway tongue. Then she swallowed, hard, and forced herself to go on.

"I know what it's like to avoid seeing a person because not seeing them is easier than facing the moment where you suddenly _know_ that what you've feared is actually true. I know what it's like to avoid seeing Rebecca, Methos, because having her disappointed that I was too busy to stop by for tea was the better fate than confirming finally that—that—" And Amanda lost it then. She sobbed loudly into her hand.

Methos just stood there, paces and millennia away, content to let her break down. He watched as she wrapped her free hand into herself, coiling down like frightened child—shrinking even as she stood there. He watched her impassively, coldly savoring the sight of poor Leaswene, finally caught in her own trap. Too long she had put on a Rebecca mask and spoken to him with authority. Too many times she has taken him to the brink, with Rebecca's gaze and unspoken judgment, quiet wisdom and damning truth. All this time he's let her get to him, let her only because in a moment of weakness it felt good to pretend that she was in fact her teacher, when all this time she was only_Amanda_, little Leaswene, a pathetic imitation in the same way _he_ was no comparison to the Ancient One. Amanda had tried to be Rebecca for him and he'd let her, but then she'd forgotten her place and damn but it felt good to remind her! That little girl could never hope to fill Rebecca's shoes and he was tired of watching her try at his expense.

The satisfaction Methos felt as he watched her cry—the gratification, that he was the one to snap her back to reality, to strip her delusions away and remind her just who she was, and, more importantly, who she was _not!_—

—Only stayed with him for less time than the breath of release before a quickening.

Then the coldness melted. Reality swung back around—full circle—and bashed him cruelly upside the head.

Amanda, little Leaswene, last surviving student of Rebecca, last surviving student of the Ancient save himself. The horsemen were dead. Byron was dead. She'd said it herself—she was the last of his family, his _true_ family, alive on earth. "Oh, hell."

Methos strode purposely over to where Amanda stood. He knew nothing in that moment save the agony of having been the one to make her cry. He had to stop this. He needed to... make it right, somehow. Whatever she was—whatever she _wasn't_—it was _nothing_ to be ashamed of. _She _did not know the meaning of shame! He had to make her see that.

"Amanda—"

—SMACK!—

Methos's head flew backwards, reeling from the sudden punch. Amanda had taken her coiled hand and released it like a spring straight into his jaw. Her eyes, still bright with tears, held a fierce, boiling hatred.

Methos's eyes flashed dangerously—a reflex, really—as he licked at a split lip, but he restrained himself and approached her anew. "Amanda." he tried again, cautiously.

She swung out again, violently, around a soul-deep cry of pain and anger as she tried to connect her fist to his face again.

Methos easily sidestepped the punch, catching her arm and halting its movement as he did so. "Amanda," he spoke again, calmly, not letting go of her fist.

Her eyes widened and she screamed again, though this time she hadn't voice enough left for it and it sounded more like a fierce groan. She tried to bring her other fist down onto his shoulder, but he caught that one, too.

"Amanda." His face was perfectly calm as he brought both her fists together. He lowered them and moved in closer so that they were standing face to face, mere inches apart.

Amanda squirmed, her eyes burning. She panted in her struggle, grunting.

Methos's hands tightened.

"Amanda. _Daro!_"

That seemed to reach her. Amanda blinked in surprise; Methos had just spoken to her in the ancient tongue, the one she thought only students of Rebecca knew.

"_Daro?_" she repeated, questioning, her eyes searching his face for answers or confirmation—something to explain why the word echoed in her ears and left her weak at the knees.

She snapped out of that soon enough, when she felt that Methos's hands about her wrists were supporting her weight. "Why do you hate me, Methos?" she asked painfully after she'd straightened her knees.

Methos winced a sharp intake of air.

"I don't mean to be such a poor substitute for Rebecca…"

"You could never take her place," he told her gently, his honest eyes glinting gold in the failing light, boring into hers. "Don't try for something you can't achieve."

Amanda's eyes threatened tears again. "But—"

"No buts, Amanda," he cut her off. "You can never be Rebecca just as I can never be the Ancient One, and none of my students can ever be me, nor none of yours can take _your_ place. Be _Amanda_, little Leaswene. It's all you need."

"But… Amanda's a rogue, a thief! No one trusts her. No one can even stand her company for more than a few weeks except—" she bit her lip, her throat clicking over a pained sort of squeak. "People who are dead now."

Methos laughed suddenly, though not unkindly. "And you're the same Amanda who kept my secret safe. The same thief who spent centuries robbing aristocrats and tax collectors so that poor farmers could afford to eat. The same rogue who used her illegally obtained wealth to buy slaves into freedom. Do not be ashamed of the life you've lived simply because you don't carry the influence that Rebecca did."

This time it was Amanda who laughed, and bitterly, as she finally wrenched herself free of Methos's grip. "Easy for you to talk," she scathed, just as bitterly. "Methos. Adræfan. Infamous martyr."

That gave Methos sudden pause. "Is that what you think?" he asked, taken aback.

Amanda nodded. "You would have let them take your head in the abbey, if it came to it. You tried to get Duncan to take your head so that he could beat Kalas—"

"You know about that?"

Amanda continued as if he hadn't interrupted. "You killed Kristen to keep him safe, exposing yourself to the watchers—"

Methos winced. "Right, about that—"

"You risked yourself to save him during his dark quickening, and put yourself on the line for Joe at his tribunal—"

Methos sputtered. "Do they tell you _everything?_"

Once again Amanda continued to ignore him. "You challenged Keane even, and let Duncan kill those you care about… Your family, Methos. All your sarcasm and pragmatic avoidance tactics aside, I think you beat out Duncan in the self-sacrificing game."

"You're naïve, Amanda," he chided dismissively. "MacLeod would never have taken my head simply for my quickening. Don't you think that Adam Pierson, watcher, would have known that before going out there? It was a ploy, a way to get him to protect me after I'd so adamantly refused him the first time. And Kristen—" he spat her name as though it sat foul on his tongue. "That was a personal vendetta. I'd wanted her dead for centuries for reasons that had nothing to do with MacLeod, but to stay out of the game I was hoping that he'd be able to kill her would do it for me. And the tribunal? Amanda, _think!_ I was a watcher, known for being a close friend of Joe Dawson. If I kept silent and let him die, they might have gotten suspicious when they tried to see how far his network of sympathizers really spread—not to mention how gravely shaken up the organization was at the time made it unsafe for _all_ of us. And Keane? Don't forget, you're the one that came to me."

"Believe what you want to, Methos," Amanda answered him.

"Well,_you _obviouslywill," he interjected.

"You can't deny that you were willing to die, _permanently_, in the abbey if it really came down to it."

Methos hung his head and sighed tiredly.

His silence was the only answer Amanda needed.

* * *

_The Abbey_

Æthelbert's contingent arrived barely an hour after the first warning was given. Rebecca had her guards placed and ready, and all of the civilians were safely stowed away within the inner sanctum of the abbey. Amanda tried to stay out from under foot, despite her lingering curiosity, as Rebecca made the rounds ensuring that everything was in readiness. Adræfan, for his part, stayed on the topmost tower, gazing off in the direction of the impeding visitors' eventual approach.

Finally the denizens of the abbey heard the distinct sound of horns.

"Milady! They approach!"

Rebecca appeared, seemingly from nowhere. She stood in the central courtyard by the main gait.

"Should I open the gates, Milady?"

Rebecca's eyes narrowed. "No," she called up to the gateman. "Let them make themselves known to us first."

Her sentence was punctuated by a louder call of the horn. Hoof beats could now be heard, as the party came to a halt outside the shut gates of the abbey. "Hello the abbey!" a strong voice shouted.

Methos, as he made his way down from the parapet, knew instinctively to whom the shout belonged. Æthelbert.

Rebecca stood fast, allowing her guardsmen to handle the opening pleasantries. "Prince Æthelbert!" a guard called out. "Please state your business with St. Anne's!"

Some members of his party bristled at being treated like common strangers. "I am here on errand for my brother the Crowned Prince," Æthelbert called back.

"The Crown usually sends forewarning whenever it has business with us, especially when royalty is to be expected. Why have we not heard tidings of your coming?"

"If my brother failed to send a missive then that is his misstep," Æthelbert replied. "He gave me an errand, and I am carrying it through. My men and I are not to blame for my brother's lack of planning. Do you intend to hold us thusly responsible, or will you open your gates and grant a few weary travelers a moment's rest?"

The gateman looked down to Rebecca, who nodded. Then the gates were lofted with a slow, rusty creeking sound. Rebecca stood firm and regal, nothing but tranquility showing on her face. By now Methos lingered in the doorway out of sight. Rebecca had to have sensed his presence. Amanda stood inside with a few of the civilians, watching in eager anticipation.

"Greetings and fondest welcome, Prince Æthelbert," Rebecca greeted in a warm yet oddly detached voice. "Please forgive the rudeness of my gateman, but as you see, we were not expecting you, and in this late hour there are many enemies who lie in wait to storm our gates, perhaps in High disguises."

Æthelbert nodded in acceptance of her apology. "Tis quite alright, Lady Rebecca. I believe that now it is my place to apologize on behalf of my absent-minded elder brother."

Rebecca smiled warmly at him. "Think naught more of it, your highness." Rebecca spread her arms in greeting. "I formally welcome you and your men to my Abbey. The day is waning to its end; I shall have my staff prepare rooms for you. You are invited to join us for the evening meal, but no doubt you shall wish to retire shortly thereafter as I sense you are weary from your days of journey. When we break our fast together on the morrow you may share with me your purpose here, after we are all well rested and in sturdier frames of mind."

Amanda was grinning from ear to ear: this was the first time she's heard Rebecca speak so formally to anyone. Idly she wondered if Æthelbert knew there were guards with bows and swords trained on his every move. Rebecca may _sound_ formal and inviting, but truly, she was only being cautious.

Methos picked up on it as well. Every hair on his body stood on end in rueful anticipation.

"Milady Rebecca," Æthelbert responded candidly. "I humbly accept your offer for food and shelter for my men. However, I fear that my business here cannot wait until morning. With your reprieve, I shall help to see to my men and then I would entreat a chance to speak to you. In private."

Rebecca's eyes hardened even though she didn't miss a beat of her welcoming, disarming smile.

Amanda gasped, relishing the tension with a child's naiveté.

Methos wasn't surprised at all.

"The matter must be serious indeed, good prince, if you are willing to forgo your first real meal in days in order to discuss it with me."

"I believe it is, Milady," Æthelbert answered.

Rebecca nodded. "Very well then. We shall secure lodging for your men, and then you and I shall _privately _discuss the business at hand."

From his hiding place, Methos smirked and silently thanked Rebecca.

"Thank you, Milady, on behalf of the Crown."

Rebecca bowed slightly in acknowledgement. "Grenhyrde!" she called. Amanda saw the young gardener materialize from one of the other doorways.

"Yes, Milady?"

"Does Brother Leonard have six rooms available and ready?"

"I believe so, Milady."

"Good. Please introduce him to our guests." Her eyes darted briefly back to Æthelbert. "When the Prince is ready, you may show him to my study."

"Yes Milady."

Grenhyrde led the men of Æthelbert's party into the abbey. There they were met by Brother Leonard, who dispatched a few of his underlings to show the guests their rooms. He personally escorted the prince to his temporary quarters.

Rebecca still stood in the courtyard after they had gone. Methos came to stand beside her, and shortly thereafter, Amanda did too.

"They will ask for my head before the night is out," Methos informed her.

"I know," Rebecca answered, her voice neutral.

"What are you going to do?" Amanda asked, her voice slightly fearful.

Rebecca's eyes were hard. "That depends on them."

* * *

_The Abbey  
A hour later_

Rebecca sat in her study, patiently waiting for Æthelbert to arrive. Methos was behind an adjoining door, so that he might listen in without being discovered. Amanda was making the rounds with one of the guards, as an agent of Rebecca. She was collecting their guests' weapons—standard policy when Rebecca didn't trust their owners.

Soon enough there was a deliberate knocking on Rebecca's study door.

"Enter," she calmly called out.

"Here you are, your highness," came Grenhyrde's voice, far enough away that Methos was certain he hadn't actually entered.

"Thank you, Grenhyrde," Rebecca said warmly. Methos heard soft footfalls as the gardener-turned-errand boy took his leave.

"Do come in, Prince Æthelbert," Rebecca entreated.

The prince obeyed, and Methos heard him shut door as he did so.

"I thank you again, Lady Rebecca, for granting me this audience."

"That's quite alright, your highness," Rebecca replied, her voice smooth as silk. Methos heard a chair scraping against the floor—the prince must have taken a seat.

"If the matter at hand is as important as you claim, then surely I shall be the one to thank you for your prudence in the matter."

From his hiding spot, Methos had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Rebecca had learned the diplomat's dance from the very best. Then he heard the subtle groan of stressed timber. Æthelbert, for his part, must have shifted uncomfortably in his seat at Rebecca's put-on assumption.

"If you please, Milady," he said candidly, "allow us to first discuss this matter _before_ any thanks are given."

Both Methos and Rebecca detected the sudden reluctance in the prince's voice. Methos sighed inaudibly, trying to decide what to do with the revelation.

Rebecca's voice hardened at the veiled implications. "By all means, Prince Æthelbert. Speak your peace, so that we may then discuss it."

A heavy silence, sparsely interrupted by a few groans and scrapes of the same chair, followed by a stifled sigh and an awkward clearing of the throat. Æthelbert was stalling for time.

"Milady Rebecca," he at last began. "As I have said, I have come on an important errand as dictated to me by my elder brother, Crowned Prince Æthelbald. I am bound by my honor and my loyalty to carry out this errand to the best of my ability, and as such I intend to do simply that." Then the prince sighed again, louder this time, clearly ill at ease.

Rebecca gave no signs revealing that she was enjoying his discomfort. "None may doubt your loyalties to both your brother and the Crown, if your duty to them overshadows your personal beliefs and yet you endeavor anyhow to act on their behalf."

Of course, that didn't mean that Rebecca wasn't going to have a bit of sport. Methos relished the concealed barb for selfish reasons.

Another groan of timber. Methos fancied that Æthelbert was holding tight to his armrests in order to prevent himself from fidgeting. "Milady Rebecca," he began. "I am a soldier, not a diplomat. I have not the skills for the dance tongues and shadowy cloaking of intentions. Please let me speak my peace, before your considerable skills further muddle my thoughts and impede my ability to carry out my designated task."

Rebecca hid her surprise at his formal plea. "The freedom for candor has always been yours, Prince Æthelbert. All you must do is speak your mind." Æthelbert was younger than Amanda, Methos suddenly remembered, and right now the prince surely must appear his age.

Æthelbert's voice carried a measure of relief as he spoke. "Milady, with your permission given I shall now be as blunt as the circumstances have presented themselves. My brother the Crowned Prince has reason to believe that you are harboring a traitor in your midst—though be assured that no blame rests on you as of yet, Lady Rebecca. My brother highly doubts that our enemy is foolish enough to create accomplices to his treason."

"These are heavy allegations, Prince Æthelbert," Rebecca said gravely after a moment's pause. "If your brother believes these claims whole-heartedly, then he would be justified in sending a legion to march against this abbey and break down every door until the rat is flushed into his hands."

Æthelbert paled slightly. "Milady…" He faltered, tried again: "Milady Rebecca. Rest assured that no one in this kingdom wishes for the destruction of St. Anne's. My father the king personally guaranteed your safety long ago and as rash as Æthelbald may be at times, my brother surely would not go so blatantly against our father's wishes."

"Your reassurances are welcomed Æthelbert, but provide little comfort," Rebecca said with brutal candor. Methos noted how she left out his title this time and would have paid a fortune to see Æthelbert's face right now.

"My Lady, please, I beseech you to hold the king's word in higher regard. His laws still stand for as long as he draws breath." Even the prince must have heard how hollow the words sounded, as his voice lost its confident edge there at the end.

"Name this traitor," Rebecca directed, ignoring the plea. "And state your terms. This is why you've come here, is it not?"

Another sigh. More stalling. How Methos wished he could see them!

"My Lady Rebecca," Æthelbert began, his voice concealing his inner turmoil surprisingly well. "I officially demand that you release the traitor Adræfan Eofrea into my custody at once, to do with as I see fit on behalf of the Crowned Prince Æthelbald so that justice may be served for his crimes of high treason against the Crown."

And there it was. The official demand. Rebecca had formally been asked to hand Methos over to agents of the Crown. Doubtless he would be held without trial and later executed—if even they were that merciful. No, more like Æthelbald would demand the execution to take place here at the Abbey to deny Methos the chance to escape en route to the palace. And that execution would have to be a beheading, because Æthelbald would of course demand a trophy of his victory.

If Rebecca refused this request (command), then she risked bringing an entire legion of troops loyal to Æthelbald down upon her head. They would tear the Abbey apart to search for Methos, and then raze it to the ground—regardless of whether or not they actually found him—in punishment for Rebecca's refusal to cooperate.

There was only one real choice, and they all knew it.

Then the tense moment was punctured by sudden intrusion of the dinner chimes.

When Rebecca spoke, she had banished all traces of emotion from her voice. "Prince Æthelbert, I officially recognize your authority on behalf of the Crown to make such demands, and I can guarantee the full cooperation of this Abbey as you endeavor to complete your appointed task. However I must insist that your royal inquisition wait until after the evening meal. I would be most honored if you and your men were to join us."

Æthelbert seemed genuinely torn by her offer, as he took a moment to formulate response and when he spoke his voice was slightly pained. "Milady Rebecca, with all due respect, I cannot in good conscience allow my attentions to be diverted, even for something as simple as the evening meal. Now that you are thusly forewarned, how would I be sure that you did not facilitate Adræfan's escape whilst my men and I dined unawares?"

Mistake, Methos thought, even before Rebecca answered.

"You would not be questioning my word of honor now, would you?" she asked, her voice a smoothly purring through merciless intent, velvet over steel. "Or my allegiance to the Crown?"

Æthelbert sputtered, realizing he had just squarely planted his foot in it and at a loss for how to answer her.

That's when Methos decided to make his appearance.

The door swung wide and the traitor in question strode confidently into the room in time to see Æthelbert's jaw drop open wide.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry, Prince Æthelbert," he said casually. "In fact, you can escort me to the Dining Hall personally."

Æthelbert's eyes were wide, and it took several seconds worth of silent stammering before he regained enough sense of self to react to Methos's sudden appearance. "Lord Adræfan!"

Methos inclined his head just slightly, his hands clasped behind his back. The robes he was wearing made him look even statelier than the prince in that moment, as disheveled as Æthelbert's appearance was after days of traveling.

Rebecca didn't try to hide her grin at Methos's _impeccable_ timing. She stood from her desk and came to stand beside him. "Will you be joining us, Prince Æthelbert? Or shall I escort your prisoner to dinner myself?"


	10. So near, so far

_The Abbey  
No time lapse_

The trio made their way at an almost painfully casual pace across the abbey to the Dining Hall. Rebecca led the way, her steps confident and sure and her posture ramrod-straight. She didn't speak a word to either Æthelbert or Methos en route, and didn't even so much as glance back over her shoulder at them.

The two men, for their part, fell into uneasy silence as they made their way after the Lady of the Abbey. Methos's gate was easy and natural, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. His gaze was fixed ahead and it seemed to Æthelbert that his presence was being ignored. Not pointedly, as though to prove something, but rather casually, as though his presence didn't matter in the slightest. The prince did his best to adopt the same level of neutrality and didn't do too bad a job at it. His gate was a little unsure though, as the tension and lingering surprise filled him with unease; and he couldn't help stealing a few sidelong glances at Lord Adræfan, wondering if he really was as calm as he appeared, or if it was all for show.

* * *

_Upon the royal archery range  
Fifteen years ago_

"Father wants me to appear at court this evening. Why would he need me there? Posturing before the courts is Æthelbald's responsibility, not mine."

"Perhaps the King wishes for his second son to learn the fine art of posturing?" the horse lord offered with a wry smile as he corrected a ten-year-old Æthelbert's stance as the boy aimed a drawn bow at a target twenty paces away.

"I shouldn't have to," the prince protested. "It's bad enough that father and Æthelbald have to sit around and pretend they care about the marriage of some dignitary to another, or about another kingdom's summer planting; but father's king and Æthelbald's heir. I'm neither."

"Perhaps your father feels that it is a necessary skill for everyone to learn?" Adræfan commented as he helped the prince hold his left arm steady.

"Well I don't think so," Æthelbert declared with some degree of dejection. "It's like a big game of pretend, but they're never allowed to stop playing. I only want to have to be me, not what they all want me to be just because my dad's the king."

"A word of advice, my young prince," Adræfan offered as he slowly removed his hand from Æthelbert's arm and backed away. "That game of pretend can become a very comfortable place to hide. I know you don't think so now, but one day you may find it appealing that not everyone knows who you really are. Playing by others' rules may not be fun, but it can be safe, and it affords the realyou some measure of protection when you drop the mask at night in relative safety behind your chamber doors."

"I do not wish to live a lie," the prince declared sincerely. "And I do not see why I should be made to. It's not like I'm ever going to sit on the throne. Why should I have to learn how to lie to diplomats or fool the servants when I'm going to grow up to be a mighty general?" Just then Æthelbert released the arrow. It sailed towards the target and hit in the fourth ring from the center. The prince grimaced.

"You never know what the future will hold, my young prince," Adræfan commented sagely. "But believe me when I tell you that 'posturing,'as you put it, has just as many uses on the field of battle as it does in regal audiences. Now, notch another arrow."

"What do you mean?" Æthelbert asked as he grabbed another arrow from his quiver. "You think I'll have to lie to Norsemen in between shooting arrows in their hearts?"

"Now who told you that a field of battle has to involve weapons?" Adræfan questioned him, humor glossing over a salient point. "And as for shooting people in the heart, if you don't learn to steady your arm you'll be lucky if you hit them at all."

"You make no sense, master horse lord," the prince lamented in confusion as he drew back his loaded bow string and took aim. His face was creased with determination as he willed his left hand not to move. Then finally he let the arrow fly, and this time it struck two rings closer to the center. "How am I to battle the enemy if I don't have any weapons?"

Adræfan's face grew very grave and for a moment Æthelbert was worried he was about to be reprimanded. His informal tutor was quick to offer suggestions and constructive criticism, yet open reprimand was almost as rare as open praise, and it scared the stuffing out of the boy each time.

"Your logic has two flaws, Æthelbert," he began, and the prince instantly took note of how no titles were used to address him. That meant that all pretense and preamble had been dropped. At times like these the prince knew well to sit up and pay close attention, for whatever words of wisdom were to follow were surely meant to have a long-lasting impact upon him—more so even than any combat move he'd ever shown him.

"First, the field of battle does not have to be where men invent new methods of disemboweling one another, nor will your enemies be easily identified by the shape of their shields and the colors of their armor. Some of the deadliest trials you must face will need to be conquered behind council doors or indeed while seated at the dinner table." Adræfan paused to let that sink in, continuing only after receiving a nod from the young prince.

"And second, your weapons are your last line of defense. Not your first. Now notch another arrow and try again."

"But, who will I be fighting then? And with what?" the prince asked, clearly confused but trying his best to understand as he reached into his quiver for another arrow.

If possible, Lord Adræfan grew even more serious. "Everyone is a potential enemy, Æthelbert. Every stranger, every acquaintance. Even friends and kinsmen."

"You lie!" the prince accused hotly as he released his arrow. His shot went wide, only barely grazing the target as it sailed by and embedded itself in a tree not far behind. "My cousins would never betray me!"

Adræfan simply sighed and shook his head at the prince's outburst. "As for your weapon, my prince—" he tapped Æthelbert roughly atop the head with an index finger— "it is this. If you do not use it then all other weapons will be useless to you. See your arrow sticking out of a tree? You did not use your head, and so your shot went wide. If that target was a real enemy you can bet that his shot would have impaled your heart instead, and then you would be lying dead instead of him."

"I did not mean that shot!" the prince defended himself. "You distracted me with your vicious lies!"

"And you think that there will be no distractions in a battle?" Adræfan shot back. "You could be riding into combat through torrential rains as lightning flashes across the sky to obscure your vision at the same time that your horse throws a shoe and still you would be expected to make your shot and land your arrow in the chest of the enemy riding in a zigzag pattern towards you!"

Æthelbert cringed back, becoming a ten-year-old boy again as opposed to a defiant prince. He saw Adræfan appraise him with cold, golden eyes and felt more exposed than he did that time Æthelbald had stolen his clothes when he'd chanced to go for a swim, and he'd had to sneak his way back to the palace without getting caught in naught but his skin.

"And as for my 'vicious lies'," Adræfan continued, "why limit yourself to your cousins? Discount no one, Prince Æthelbert. Not your brothers, not your wife, not even your very own children when you have them. And don't discount your father, either, nor your grandmother. Nor even me."

Æthelbert's eyes were as wide as saucers. "Are—are you telling me that—that you're going to—to try and kill me?" he stuttered, a quiet, insecure little-boy voice, chock full of quiet, unmeasured little-boy fears.

Adræfan's demeanor did not betray any consolatory emotions. "If ever I decide to do just that, I expect you to be ready for it. I expect you to block my sword with yours and then run your dagger straight through my heart without a second thought."

Æthelbert was pale and trembling now, and he knew it. It only added to his mounting shame. "I… But I could never kill you, Adræfan." The declaration fell softly, all aching trust and little-boy blind faith.

Finally—and only just barely—Adræfan's expression softened towards the prince. Æthelbert's quiet confession was meant as both a statement of fact and a heartfelt reassurance, for didn't Adræfan just say that everyone could be your enemy, looking to do you in with a dagger in the back?

"You're a good lad," Adræfan said at last, the words falling as a grudging concession, as though it cost him much to say them. "But if anything I have taught or ever will teach you should stick in your mind, let it be this: live, Æthelbert. Live and grow stronger, so that you might fight another day. Do whatever you need to in order to survive, even if that means killing the people you once cared about."

Æthelbert's eyes were treacherously bright as he whispered, "but what if you still care about them?"

"Especially then," Adræfan replied, his voice suddenly horse despite how easily the words had come. He bit down on his tongue, used the pain to startle some control back into him. "Especially then." Then the Lord of Horses seemed to blink and a transformation took place before the prince's very eyes. Adræfan was back to his usual self again, unaffected posture and easy demeanor returning to his person.

"Go and fetch your arrows," he directed. "Your father will never forgive me if I let you return to court sullied from practice. You must bathe and change first." Then he flashed that patented smile that never quite reached his eyes yet was still so convincing that very few people ever noticed that fact.

Æthelbert always noticed, of course, but right now he didn't care. It meant that their serious conversation was over and done with. With a bright and happy grin that only children were capable of, the prince ran over to the target to begin retrieving his arrows. When he turned back around Lord Adræfan had vanished, but his nursemaid was swiftly approaching the archery range.

* * *

_The Abbey  
No time lapse_

_Are you posturing now, Horse Lord?_ Æthelbert thought._ Or are you truly waiting calmly for me to kill you?_

The three of them were the last to enter the Dining Hall. All conversation stopped as soon as they opened the doors. The Prince's entourage immediately stood, as well as the Christian-oriented members of the Abbey. The rest, quickly catching on, followed suit scarce seconds thereafter.

Rebecca stepped gracefully aside, making Æthelbert the full center of attention. Methos slowed his pace so that he was no longer walking on the same level as the prince.

Æthelbert, for his part, seemed taken quite by surprise. "Please…" he said, forcing authority into his voice. "Do not rise on our account. Dinner should not be interrupted simply because we were late."

"They rise for you, my prince," Rebecca explained in an oddly musical voice. "They have grown accustomed to your father's visits."

"Well I am not my father," Æthelbert declared, as though there were some doubters in the room. "I would rather sit and eat than waste time on propriety and sentiment. We are not at court here, and my station does not require it."

"You _are_ a prince," Methos spoke up, his voice perfectly level. "If your station does not demand courtly propriety, then whose?"

"How _dare_ you address his highness!" a man suddenly called out, harsh and accusing. Methos recognized him as Æthelbert's lieutenant.

"How dare _you_ disrupt the peace of her Lady's dining hall," Methos shot back, his own voice a quiet sneer.

The lieutenant bolted to his feet, enraged, but a sudden hand on his arm restrained him. "Sit down, Freca," the man that arm belonged to ordered. It was Eorl, Æthelbert's captain.

The lieutenant froze, still glaring daggers at Methos, but eventually he—tensely, sat back down.

"This abbey is sanctuary," Rebecca spoke, her voice almost hypnotic even though her eyes were hard as immutable as the stones of the abbey floor. "There is no place here for heated words and ill-mannered guests. All are welcomed, of course, but do not force me to take action in order to protect the integrity of St. Anne's for—rest assured—I will do so, regardless of the rank and station of the offending party."

All in Æthelbert's party winced, thoroughly chastised by the Lady of the Abbey. Even Æthelbert bowed his head a little. Methos, for his part, managed to look solemn enough despite the smirk threatening to break free across his lips.

Just then Amanda stood. "Please milady, milord… lords… Will you not join us?"

Methos smiled fondly now. Rebecca had taught the little thief well. So soft, so shy she appeared as she curtsied slightly to them and reached out an imploring hand. She was rewarded by a smile from Æthelbert, who almost reflexively stretched his own hand out to meet hers. Their fingers brushed and Amanda sweetly blushed, demurring slightly into a larger curtsey and casting her eyes respectfully at the floor. Æthelbert's own smile broadened as his fingers grazed atop hers and then swept down to her palm. He tentatively held her hand in his and then brought it up to his lips and kissed it in proper gentlemanly fashion.

"I would be delighted, noble lady, to join your table."

He released her hand and Amanda curtseyed again, grinning shyly through the flush in her cheeks. She elegantly stretched out a hand to beckon the prince over to her table. He followed Amanda and claimed one of the vacant seats beside her, never taking his eyes from her the entire time.

Methos noticed Rebecca's small smile of satisfaction as she too made her way to the table. She sat on Amanda's other side, and Methos then saw that the only remaining vacant chair was on _Rebecca's_ other side. He smiled and slightly shook his head, swearing that if he didn't know better, that entire scene must have been planned.

Dinner was served and, for the most part, for the moment, it seemed as though everyone would be able to get along at least until the end of the meal. Methos, finding himself seated between Rebecca and the Celtic Priestess, had a hard time maintaining his casual and unaffected air. The food tonight was exquisite, fit enough to fill the plates of kings. Everyone would naturally assume that it was in honor of Æthelbert, but Methos knew better. The style, the spices, the adornments… everything had a distinctly Persian feel, and you do not cook Persian for a prince of Wessex without announcing your intentions or else the desired effect would fall decidedly flat. No, this meal wasn't for Æthelbert, Methos realized around the sudden lump in his throat. It was for _him_, in case it was to be his last meal on earth. It was Rebecca's gift to him.

For that fact alone, Methos managed to eat a respectable portion of his dinner despite his sudden loss of appetite. Methos picked at his dinner slowly, spending much of his time simply observing the crowd.

Rebecca, on the other hand, stared fixedly ahead. She spoke to no one as she ate but rather also found herself studying those seated before her. For better or worse, she never so much as glanced at Methos sitting beside her, and Methos almost wondered if it was because she found that she couldn't bring herself to do so.

Amanda's attentions, Methos saw, were fully captivated by the prince, who seemed almost equally enraptured. Methos wondered exactly how sincere Amanda was being, and still silently applauded her efforts to diffuse the tension in the room. It had worked in spades, and now she had the full attention of the prince to contend with—not that it appeared as though she minded in the least.

Methos regarded his former pupil almost wistfully. The last time he'd seen the boy was over two seasons ago and back then he had been completely on his guard. He had discovered the den of treachery in the royal household and didn't yet know how deeply it delved. It was a bittersweet moment for him when he realized that he had taught Æthelbert so well that he couldn't eliminate him entirely from suspicion. What was worse, Methos couldn't bring himself to not care about the rivalries in the line of succession, because the Last Sanctuary was here in Wessex, it's fate irrevocably entwined with of its king. If it were any other kingdom…

_Will you be able to kill me?_ he wondered of Æthelbert. After what's he'd taught the prince... _Will I be more gratified if you are, or if you must refuse?_

Æthelbert, on the other hand, did not appear to be dwelling on the seriousness of the situation. Amanda was regaling him with stories of Rebecca's wondrous good deeds as the head of St. Anne's, and the prince appeared to be paying close attention. Of course, whether or not he was enthralled by Amanda's tales or by Amanda herself was anyone's guess, though from Leaswene's charms, Methos was inclined to assume the latter.

The one important thing he noticed, but failed to properly register at the time, was the pained and hollow look on the boy Grenhyrde's face. There was a quiet jealousy in his eyes, overshadowed by an aching sense of longing. Many years from now, and probably on unto eternity, Methos would wonder if Amanda ever really knew.

Dinner progressed with an odd sense of the passage of time. On the one hand, it flew by so quickly that Methos couldn't believe that what by rights should have been his last meal was already over. On the other, it ticked by with aching slowness. Methos would have much rather just been done with it already, as opposed to jumping through the hoops Rebecca set up in order to stall for time. While some part of him was oddly touched by it, Methos knew that he was a condemned man, and as such he didn't feel in the mood for the charade that was dinner despite Rebecca's charity. He felt anxious, he felt resigned, and, in the middle of that large crowd, he felt inexorably alone.

Suddenly his private reverie was interrupted by the intrusion of harp chords. Methos looked up sharply just in time for the flutist to join in, and he barely restrained his groan. Rebecca had arranged for some entertainment tonight too, it seemed. His irritation turned to bemusement, however, when the other dinner guests began to get up and retreat to the back of the room. Obviously such after-dinner exploits were not foreign here, and Methos found himself smiling wanly as the monks, nuns, and other abbey denizens formed a giant circle and began going through the motions of a popular folk dance.

Methos caught Rebecca's eye, and she smiled at him. Suddenly he found himself laughing, and Rebecca's smile curved some more.

"_My gift to you_," she whispered in the ancient tongue, just loud enough for him to hear.

The intensity of the emotion forced Methos to shut his eyes and look away. He knew what she was thinking, what she had planned. Behind them, on the wall, hung the tapestries. Two beautiful pieces of intricately woven cloth, one yellow overlaid with green that embodied how the Earth both harnesses and is harnessed by the light and power of the sun; the other silver overlaid with dark vermillion that embodied how life bled for that light and how the phases of the moon controlled the blood of the Earth. They were the flags of Sanctuary, the flags flown by the Ancient that Methos remembered flapping in the idle breezes above the temple of Ur.These tapestries hung on the wall behind the head table of the Dining Hall, while the flags of the Christians and of the crown of Wessex hung upon the side walls. This modern society could not know that Rebecca and her Abbey were screaming out their loyalties as plain as day, and that they weren't for the king or his supposed religion.

Methos saw Rebecca's smile, heard her whispered words to him as she sat beneath the daunting images of those two giant tapestries, and he knew what she wanted, what she was asking him to do. She had set the stage, enabled the distractions, put everything into its proper place. When she had arranged for this he didn't know, but he suspected that Rebecca's circle was much more loyal—and efficient—than he first gave credit for. Behind the moon tapestry—as it always was—a door was concealed. This door no doubt led to a dark, winding staircase that took a person down into the veritable dungeon level of the abbey. There it would find a narrow, unlit passageway that wound stretch on seemingly forever before it began an achingly gradual ascent. Up, up, up it would wind through the darkness until a small pinprick of light could be seen. Stick your hands out and you'd find a boulder that, even though it appeared too large for just one man to move, it would roll away easily and voila! You'd be standing in the forest, nearly a mile away.

Rebecca wanted him to run; she wanted him to use this Sanctuary and save his own life. Æthelbert—and even his men—would vouch that the Abbey had cooperated in every way with the royal inquisition. Æthelbald would be hard-pressed to drum up support for an offensive against St. Anne's. Methos's smile returned. Rebecca had saved him!

Methos looked up and scanned the crowd again. He wanted to be sure that his escape would go unseen. He saw that, when the music had changed, a few of the dancers had partnered off—including Amanda and Æthelbert. Methos had to smile at the pretty picture they made…

…Only to frown as one of the prince's entourage approached.

"My Prince, I must protest! We are here on assignment from your brother. We should be carrying out his orders, not fraternizing with Abbey mistresses!"

"Your soldiers should learn to lighten up," Amanda admonished with a beguiling smile as she twirled away from Æthelbert and danced seductive circles around their interloper. "Lord Adræfan isn't going anywhere, see?" and she pointed a slender hand in Methos's direction.

From where he was sitting Methos could feel the frigid change to Rebecca's mood.

"I am carrying out my duties, _valet_," the prince replied. He had stopped dancing and was now standing face to face with the other man. "If we are to execute a man this night, then surely you would deign to offer him the courtesy of a final night of feasting and song?" Æthelbert's eyes flicked briefly to Methos, who was seated tensely in his chair as suddenly the Abbey walls began to close in around him.

"If you wish to be so charitable, _sir_," the valet replied haughtily, "then allow the condemned to step forward and dance with the girl; but no one of Royal blood should sink so low as to twirl around the floor with one of Lady Rebecca's charity cases."

Out of the corner of his eye Methos saw Rebecca tense and nearly stand. She was waiting on Æthelbert's reply.

"No one _not_ of Royal blood should dare attempt to dictate to a Prince what is and is not appropriate," Æthelbert answered icily.

The valet seemed unaffected. "Perhaps all the time you've spent slithering through the squalor beside the common soldiers you seem to prefer so well has affected your memories, my prince, so I shall remind you that as senior attaché to your _older _brother, I have been sent here to do just that."

By now everyone in the Hall had ceased whatever they were doing to pay attention to the altercation taking place.

"Please," Amanda interrupted as sweetly as she could. "Let whatever personal issues you may have be decided elsewhere. This is a place of sanctuary and rest, not a theatre for Royal arguments."

The valet rounded on Amanda like a striking cobra. "Know your place, wench!" he spat. "And do not interrupt."

"Hey don't you call her that!"

Everyone turned around to see Grenhyrde storming into the circle. Methos heard Rebecca gasp.

"Boy…" Æthelbert lowly hissed, but the warning went unheeded.

"Amanda is a student of the Lady Rebecca!" Grenhyrde hotly informed them. "She deserves your respect."

"What she deserves cannot be expressed in front of servants of the cloth," the valet sneered, turning his nose up with the air of someone who'd just caught whiff of something foul. Then it seemed that everyone was about to reply to that at once except that Rebecca's voice cut across the clamoring din.

"I will not tolerate such wanton disrespect in my halls," she declared, standing at last, wielding authority like a weapon. Her voice echoed off the walls with just as much force as though she had shouted the line when in fact her voice was deathly even. "Nor will I let agents of the crown with delusions of grandeur turn my Sanctuary into a common Ale House, for such your behavior would seem."

Everyone stood stunned a moment—very few had ever heard their Lady speak so harshly, and to agents of the Crown!

"Apologies, milady," Æthelbert offered sincerely after a moment's pause. "This buffoon—" and he gestured pointedly towards the valet— "belongs to my brother. His actions reflect poorly on us all, but rest assured his opinions are not shared and his belligerence will not go unpunished."

Methos saw the prince's eyes flicker briefly to him, but his expression did not betray any answers. He remained seated in stony silence, glittering gold eyes surveying all.

"Why do you kowtow to this woman?" the valet questioned incredulously, his own haughty gestures sweeping out towards the head table. "Your taste in company aside, you are still a prince of Wessex. Our authority here is paramount. They have no right to dictate to_us_."

"Hold your tongue!" Æthelbert demanded sharply. "The Lady Rebecca sits in the deepest councils of my father your king! She represents _his_ authority, so know your place and keep your silence!"

"These ignorant harlots only serve to council the king between his bed sheets!" the valet shot back, his voice as ugly as his words. "You should know better than that, my prince."

"Stop trying to dictate to me what I should and should not know," Æthelbert ordered, icy steel in his voice that did Methos proud. Rebecca said nothing, her eyes sweeping in appraisal. "I am the prince here, not you."

"By your coarse behavior one would hardly know it," the valet replied snidely. "Freely taking pleasure as you do in the company of a common whore."

"You take that back!" Grenhyrde shouted, marching forward a few more angry paces.

Amanda gasped and Methos held his breath where he sat.

"Mind your tongue you little rat if you wish to keep it behind your teeth a while longer!"

Unbeknownst to the people on the floor, Rebecca had been silently instructing her people with a series of looks and nods in the right directions. By now most of the uninvolved parties had discretely left the Dining Hall, and the guardsmen were stealthily making their way in from behind.

"Do you think your place at my brother's side will protect you?" Æthelbert asked then, his voice unnervingly calm. "When my father hears of what you've said here today—"

"He won't have the time or the inclination to care," the valet interrupted. "He has more important things to worry about, as do we." A bony finger was thrust in Methos's direction. "Your childhood affections for that traitorous dog have clouded your judgment. Not only have you consented to eat at the same table as him, but you have mistaken tavern wenches for privileged company simply because they disguise themselves in robes of quality! We should kill the vermin and be gone from this place before they are allowed to corrupt you further!"

"Are you always this gracious to your hosts?" Amanda asked suddenly, arms folded, the air of a demure noble girl finally cast aside.

"Don't you be so quick to call yourself host," the valet remonstrated, "unless of course you are trying liken your Abbey to a brothel. Tell me then, how much would you have charged the prince for an evening of—"

SMACK!

The valet didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Grenhyrde strode forward quickly and punched him squarely in that offending jaw.

"Grenhyrde!" Amanda shouted as the valet stumbled back, while Methos shot to his feet.

"Insolent brat!" the valet roared, steadying himself, licking at the split lip. "Someone should teach the boy some manners," he then declared, suddenly removing a dagger from the folds of his robes. Amanda gasped and Grenhyrde's eyes went wide.

"Now!" Rebecca shouted, and the guards rushed forward.

Surprised, the valet turned quickly around to see men armed with drawn swords rushing towards them.

"Stop this madness!" Æthelbert called out as a guardsman stepped up on either side of him. Nevertheless he allowed them to restrain both of his arms behind his back and, wisely, didn't protest again. What he did was look imploringly to Methos, but once again the immortal's expression betrayed absolutely nothing.

"They have no right!" the valet cried, slashing his dagger madly through the air to try and keep the soldiers at bay. It swung in close to Amanda, but she was ready for it. She grabbed his forearm in a surprisingly tight grip. When he went to slash back in the other direction he found his hand restrained. His eyes widened in surprise just as Amanda pivoted in what appeared to be a dance move from earlier. With grace and skill, she made the valet howl in pain as she wrenched the dagger away from him. The valet clutched his wrist and whimpered slightly when Amanda released her grip.

Amanda held the dagger delicately in her fingers and flashed an apologetic grin at Rebecca, who was still standing beside Methos at the head table. She also noticed that guardsmen had by now restrained every other member of Æthelbert's entourage. The valet, now unarmed, stood alone in the center of a circle of guardsmen's swords.

"It seems you both were right about unarmed combat," Amanda said to Rebecca.

"Escort them from my Abbey," Rebecca ordered with disdain, ignoring her student completely. "If they wish to further treat with us in this matter then the Prince may return in the morning,_without_ his dogs. For now just get them out of my sight." And she dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

Æthelbert looked resigned but did not offer protest. The guards released their hold on them but did not forfeit their positions. The other members of his party were shown to the door under guard, leaving just the prince and the valet, who still stood in the center of a circle of guards. Then finally the circle deformed as they began to lead the two of them from the Dining Hall.

Unfortunately this afforded the valet an opening.

"You insolent_bitch!_ These indignities are _your_ fault!"

Methos saw from where he was standing that the guards had failed to see if the valet was further armed. The man drew a bodice dagger seemingly from out of nowhere and with lightning quickness hurled it towards Amanda's heart.

Amanda's eyes widened.

Rebecca gasped.

Methos vaulted over the table.

Grenhyrde screamed.

The valet gurgled slightly, blood dribbling from his mouth, as five swords held his dying body on its feet.

Æthelbert forced his way out of the restraint of his guards. He shoved Amanda roughly to the floor only to find himself suddenly standing in her place. Grenhyrde's scream died out as the prince looked down at his chest, his face showing innocent surprise almost akin to bemusement at finding the small dagger embedded there, with a red stain blossoming around it. He fingered the hilt gingerly, shivering when his body felt the subtle movement of the blade. Then he giggled in a very un-princely way, just as his knees gave out and he plummeted to the floor.

Methos made it to his side in time to catch him as he fell.

* * *

_The cemetery parking lot_

"You know, sometimes I relive that night in my nightmares," Amanda spoke softly. She was standing a few paces away from Methos, her back to him, as the elder immortal reclined against the side of the car, his hands warming themselves in his pockets.

"Oh?" Methos asked with casual coldness.

"That was the first time a mortal ever…"

"Took a stabbing for you?"

"Acted as though my life was worth something."

"Every life mattered to Æthelbert," Methos informed her. Then, quietly, "even mine."

Amanda turned to face him then. "When you carried him away… I was so sure he was dead, or that he would be soon enough at least. And then when I thought he'd gone and died for me—_me! _An immortal!" Amanda dipped her head, swallowing thickly. "It's a good thing the guards had already killed the valet, or I just might have had to test the laws of holy ground myself."

Methos was silent as he thought back to that time. He had be so close to escaping! He could have made it out with his head intact, and Rebecca and her Abbey would have had the perfect alibi. He would have been safe, and they would have been safe, and Æthelbert...

Alas that the gods never allow for perfect solutions.

The oddest part was, Methos found that he couldn't place blame. He tried, at the time, to blame the valet, the prince, Amanda, even Grenhyrde! But his conscience (and where did _that_ come from?) refused to let him. He had to settle for blaming fate, and a return to hating gods he had long since ceased believing in. Yet even then, the anger wasn't been nearly as strong as it should have been.

Everything had been perfect. Whatever had lain between he and Rebecca, it didn't matter as much to her as his life did, for surely she didn't have to arrange for his escape once she'd learned the full gravity of the situation. She would have been justified in letting him die, and they both knew it. Methos had learned then that he still mattered to her, on whatever level, and that was what counted in the end. Even if he was to die there in the Abbey, Rebecca had taken considerable risk to try and save him, and in the end Methos discovered that that was enough. He didn't need to be granted his life. In that moment, when Rebecca smiled at him, he was granted everything he could have ever wanted.

Perhaps that's why he couldn't be angry.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, Methos didn't have much time to contemplate such things. Æthelbert had fallen and lie dying in his arms; the same arms that had taught him to swing a sword and draw a bow, the same arms that once provided comfort and safety when the nightmares had come calling to a frightened little boy. When Methos reached the prince's side, Æthelbert allowed himself to fully collapse into the comforting familiarity of the embrace. Adræfan was there, and everything would be all right.

As Methos held his hands to the wound, trying desperately to stop the bleeding, the prince had closed his eyes with a smile on his face, the way he used to do as a child.

Methos knew the prince was dying, and for the first time since arriving at the Abbey, Methos felt afraid.

Without a word, he scooped the prince up into his arms and took off for the infirmary. Rebecca and Amanda hurried to follow him, but at the time he wasn't aware of their presence.

As it turned out, the dagger hadn't hit any vital organs, but it did lacerate an artery. Only he and Rebecca, working in tandem, were able to get the bleeding under control and save the prince's life. There were moments when he was sure that Æthelbert was lost to them, but they were able to bring him back each time. It was dawn before they finished, and another two days before they were certain that the prince would live.

For two days the prince's men were left to wait outside the Abbey grounds, for Rebecca would not tolerate their presence within her walls.

For two days Amanda worried over her fallen friend, getting on Miranda's very last nerve with her anxious prattling.

For two days, Methos did not leave the prince's bedside, not until the moment he awakened.

* * *

_The infirmary  
Three days after the stabbing, evening_

"Welcome back."

The prince groaned and winced at the sound of the voice. He tried to open his eyes but the soft lamplight hurt them.

"You gave us all a royal scare," that voice continued, seemingly quite satisfied at the pun.

Æthelbert moaned and struggled weakly against the linens that seemed to restrain him. Finally he felt a hand alight on his shoulder, and his eyes shot open. "Adræfan?" his voice was hoarse, but it aptly conveyed his surprise at seeing exactly who was leaning over him.

"Drink this." Methos eased the prince into a sitting position and then slowly helped him to drink a little water.

"What happened?" the prince asked, his voice a little clearer.

Methos gathered a few pillows together and provided him with a means of sitting up in bed. Æthelbert reclined into the soft downy support with a tired smile, but his eyes were alert and questioning.

"Your brother's valet threw a dagger into your chest," Methos replied flatly as he reclaimed his chair by the prince's bedside.

"Is that why I feel so terrible?"

Methos snorted a small laugh at the honesty of the question. Then he watched with trepidation as the prince brought his hands up to his chest and gingerly poked and prodded at the large bandage that wound its way around him. He winced a few times, but seemed satisfied with whatever he found in his inspection. He dropped his hands back to his sides and regarded Methos with uncertainty.

"Oh you'll be all right," he assured the prince with ease. "Just take it easy for a while, and follow the healers' orders."

"You saved my life…" Æthelbert declared, though he didn't sound happy about it.

"The Lady Rebecca helped considerably," Methos informed him, uncomfortably unsure of the prince's intentions.

"Why?" The question was quiet, and made the prince sound very young. "Why, when I've come here to kill you?"

"I am still a marked man, whether you live or die," Methos informed him. "Your death would not have changed my fate, and with that being the case..." Methos shrugged. "I would rather you lived."

Æthelbert was unable to hold Methos's gaze and so looked away.

"Sister Miranda has a lovely bedside manner," Methos continued. "Listen to what she says and you'll be out of that bed in a week, though it will probably take some time before you can swing swords again."

The prince nodded. Then slowly, hesitantly, he looked up to meet Methos's eyes. "What happens now?"

"Now you rest, my prince. I will see you again when you're on your feet." Methos stood from his chair and made his exit, all the while feeling Æthelbert's eyes linger upon him.

Methos didn't trust himself, and so he didn't turn back around.

* * *

_The cemetery parking lot_

"Why couldn't he grant you a pardon?" Amanda asked. "You did save his life, you know. That should have proven you innocent of treason."

Methos shrugged from where he was reclining. He suddenly felt chilled. "It wasn't in his power."

"But at least he could have let you escape!" Amanda protested. "Just told his brother you were dead and let you go. Shouldn't have been a hard choice if you ask me."

"But I didn't," Methos retorted matter-of-factly.

Amanda sighed tiredly and hung her head a moment. "I'm walking through that gate in a moment to go visit with Rebecca," she declared. "You can just stand there, living in the past, or you can come with me."

Methos eyed her coldly for a moment, frowning slightly. The past was such an easy place to get lost in, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure if he could turn down the chance to see Rebecca. After everything… Now that he was seriously confronted with the prospect, staying behind seemed like the worst possible insult.

His mind finally made up, Methos shifted to stand upright and removed his hands from his pockets. He walked slowly to where Amanda was patiently waiting, and stopped to stand beside her. She offered him a soft, reassuring smile, and reached out to grab his hand. Methos allowed her the gesture, and the two of them began to walk silently, hand in hand, towards the cemetery gate.

* * *


	11. Conclusions

_The cemetery  
No time lapse _

Amanda led Methos silently, her hand holding his in a strong, reassuring grip. Together they wound their way through the paths of the cemetery at a steady, even pace; neither rushing nor hesitant. Whether or not he wanted to go was immaterial; right now Methos had no choice. Amanda was taking him to see Rebecca. Part of him winced while another part of him smiled. For better or worse, it gave him a sense of being led home.

As they walked… past sculpted angels and cold stone monuments… past simple graves with simple coverings… through row upon row of the silent dead… Methos allowed his mind to wander back to another time and place, and another fateful walk.

* * *

_The Abbey  
Nearly two weeks after the prince awoke  
Just after dawn_

Rebecca led the way, wearing robes of pale gray embroidered with silver. Parts of her hair were pulled back into braids, and she wore a simple circlet on her brow.

The captain of her guard followed close behind, wearing the colors of the sun and the moon. He had a broadsword at his hip and a shovel slung over one shoulder.

Methos came third, in the closest approximation to the traveling garb he wore when he first arrived. Rebecca had replacements made for him.

Flanking him on either side were Freca and Eorl. Their swords were loose at their hips, but they held no weapons in their hands.

The monk who attended the conference meeting followed next, wearing common monk's robes and carrying a hand-sized bronze crucifix.

Prince Æthelbert brought up the rear. His left arm was in a sling and still of little use to him after all the muscle damage the dagger had wrought. He concealed his pain well, however, and walked unaided.

Amanda walked beside him, on the pretense of ensuring that he didn't stumble. She wore a modest and simple burgundy dress. Her long dark hair was brushed out, but not pulled back.

The seven of them silently picked their way through the lingering mists on this chilly morning. Rebecca had led them out of St. Anne's and away from the grounds. Finally after what seemed an eternity to march in solemn silence, Rebecca stopped. The party found themselves standing atop a gentle hill. St. Anne's could still be seen in the distance behind them, but in the distance ahead, still obscured by fog, was the sea. The air was crisp with the faint scent of salt from what is now called English Channel. Somewhere up in the cloudy sky, a few gulls were calling.

"Does the condemned feel that this location is to his liking?" Rebecca asked Methos, no emotion betrayed in her voice or showing on her face.

"As a place to die?" Methos asked casually. Then he grew somber and his voice quieted. "I only wish the fog would clear so I could see the water."

Rebecca held his gaze a moment in silent understanding before she turned to face the prince. Then, almost as if the scene was rehearsed, Amanda backed away from him and made her way to Rebecca's side. Off to their right and slightly forward of them her head guard stood, his expression blank as he surveyed the scene. To the left, and positioned so that in three groups they formed a semi-circle, the Catholic stood, cross in hand. His expression was resigned.

Methos stood in the center of this formation, and with Freca and Eorl still standing beside him, a pace apart on either side. He had his back immediately to Rebecca because he was facing Æthelbert, who pulled the half circle down into a teardrop that left Methos and the guards standing at an awkward center.

"Adræfan Eofrea," the prince began, his tone formal. "Lord of Horses you were for my father the king, and Lord of Horses you shall remain. I return your title to you, with all the rights and privileges contained therein. When you die this day, it shall be with the dignity you have proven and the honor you have earned."

Methos demurred, his head bowing low. "Thank you, my prince."

Æthelbert continued, "when I look into your eyes, I see only a man driven by the strength of his convictions. There is no cowardice that I can see, nor is there shame. If indeed you are the traitor the Crowned Prince has found you to be, then I judge it to be the same level of treachery found in all revolutionaries. Alas that both are dangerous to the survival of the monarchy." The prince paused to let his speech finish echoing in everyone's ears. Then it seemed that his formality developed an edge to it, as though a protective shield of enforced neutrality was erected to cover an immense sadness.

"You have been sentenced to die for your crimes, Adræfan Lord of Horses, and on this morning you shall meet your fate. Is your soul prepared?"

"As much as it can be, to be forcibly separated from the body," Methos replied with the same casualty he used when first addressing Rebecca.

Æthelbert nodded. "Then as a prisoner of the Crown, now according to our laws, I will entertain your final requests. Speak them now, or hold your peace."

"Well since a request to spare my life will go unanswered…" Methos started with forced humor, though it quickly cooled. "I would ask that the Lady Rebecca keep memoriam of my death, as according to our family's custom."

Æthelbert looked from Methos to Rebecca.

"It will be done," she replied, her voice hoarse and thick with repressed emotion.

Methos bowed his head again, both thankful and accepting.

"Adræfan Eofrea, I must now carry out your sentence. Have you any final words before your execution?"

"Just this, my prince," Methos said, his voice surprisingly neutral. Then he flashed Æthelbert a blinding grin, warm and wet as tears. "Remember to keep your left arm steady."

Æthelbert's breath hitched and he bit down on his lip. This silenced everyone else's looks of confusion.

"My brother's valet was to be your executioner," the prince continued, his voice strained now instead of level. "Unfortunately it seems as though fate had other plans. The head of the Abbey's guard has volunteered to take his place." Æthelbert paused as the captain stepped forward, but then he spoke again, voicing the words as another man might take a knife to his own flesh. "Know, Adræfan, that I would have done it, had you asked. If I had strength enough in my arm not—" and there his throat clicked around a painful swallow— "Not dishonor you, by failing to cut cleanly. Oh my honor, Adræfan."

Stunned, Methos could not form an answer in words. Instead he managed to let his carefully constructed walls crumble just a little, to let the boy Æthelbert had been see just a little of the man that Methos was. And there was gratitude in that look, surely, coupled with commissioned respect. And—to Æthelbert more precious than gold—a mentor's esteem.

"On your knees," the captain directed as soon as the moment had passed.

Methos obliged him, his expression falling stoic once again even as he kept his gaze fixed on Prince Æthelbert, who bravely withstood the eye contact. Then the monk began to speak in Latin, the usual platitudes, blessings, and prayers for one about to be executed. Methos ignored him, and let his thoughts stray down the darkened alleys of his mind that he hadn't visited in time innumerable. And he almost smiled, if only for the prince's sake. And for Rebecca's.

The captain took up his position behind Methos. The immortal didn't bow his head, as per custom for beheadings. No, if the captain wanted his head so badly, he would have to hack it off the hard way. Methos wanted to keep his gaze fixed upon Æthelbert.

* * *

_"When the time comes… don't look down."  
"What?"  
"Don't bow before your executioner."  
"Why not?"  
"I want the last thing you see when you leave this world… to be a friend."_

* * *

Methos was determined to oblige him. 

The monk finished his spiel.

Methos locked eyes with Æthelbert's.

Amanda stood tense beside Rebecca and slightly behind so that when the quickening roared through the glade it would go to her teacher. However the hell her teacher was going to explain the light show… Amanda wasn't currently able to think that far ahead.

Freca and Eorl backed away, out of splatter range.

Then Methos heard the unmistakable sound of a sword unsheathing his Methos's back. He held his breath.

Time seemed to slow down.

A gentle breeze blew around them.

A gull called out from somewhere unseen.

Methos felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as his body sensed the swing of the blade.

Then a sudden, searing pain, and Methos's eyes show wide. For all he had been determined not to break that eye contact, he couldn't help but look down…

...To see the tip of the captain's sword protruding four bloodstained inches out of the center of his chest.

Methos looked back up at Æthelbert, startled, confused. The prince's expression hadn't changed, but now his face was wet with tears.

Methos gasped silently as the sword was yanked back through his chest with a faint slurping sound. The rush of air formed a blood bubble that popped wetly inside his mouth, leaving its remnants to dribble down his chin. That slight tickle was the last thing the immortal knew as his world plunged into darkness.

* * *

_The cemetery_

A simple white monument, engraved with plated gold. Elegant, yet modest. Perfectly fitting for Rebecca.

_Rebecca Horne  
1959-1994_

Methos could only stare.

Time didn't speed up or slow down.

The sun didn't symbolically come out from behind the clouds, nor did it start to rain.

His vision didn't flash or fade.

His senses didn't heighten or fall away.

He wasn't overcome by a sudden rush of emotion.

He didn't cry out or fall to his knees.

Methos simply stood there, gazing down at the simple grave and monument to 'Rebecca Horne.'

The sky was overcast, the air chilly and damp. Just like that long ago morning.

Amanda still held his hand. She squeezed slightly in reassurance.

Methos didn't speak.

He didn't know if he could or not, because he didn't try. Perhaps he _couldn't_ _try_, but that seemed like over-analyzing, just a bit.

Methos could only stare, and stare he did, in the cold and the damp, in real time, with nothing to add to or detract from the moment—nothing to sharpen reality or rip to him away from it. His eyes fell on the beautiful simplicity of the final resting place of the Blessed Daughter of Mycenae and did not stray.

His mind did not wander.

He didn't dwell on the injustice of having the inscription written with the English alphabet (for Rebecca Horne was English, was she not?). He didn't think to how Rebecca must have not left behind a will, for surely she would not have consented to being planted in the cold ground, buried like something trying to be hidden away—or worse, forgotten. Or had she strayed so far from the early beliefs they both held so dearly to that she did not mind her husband's decision? And even if so, then surely, a Babylonian burial would have been called for, not such a simplistic, _Catholic_ rite, tailored for this modern age of church-going apathetic children of skepticism and technology.

Methos did not think about those things.

Nor did he note the inaccuracy of the inscribed date of birth. He didn't even bother to note the inaccuracy of the _name!_ Such things seemed moot, and immaterial, and not worth the efforts to contemplate.

Methos didn't think at all. He just stood there, in the cold and foggy damp, holding Amanda's hand.

Staring.

Feet firmly planted in reality.

"Is it what you expected?" he heard Amanda ask, breaking the silence that surrounded them.

"I never expected her to die…" Methos answered honestly, emotionless.

"I know what you mean," Amanda sympathized. Her unspoken question lingered in the air.

"Four years…" Methos breathed. "I've lived for over five thousand… this should seem infinitesimal to me."

"But it feels like forever," Amanda finished for him.

Methos nodded. "I've gone centuries without seeing her before…"

"Decades," Amanda offered for herself. "It never seemed so long then. All that time, wasted."

"Immortals are far too careless with time," Methos observed.

"We all think we'll live forever."

Methos snorted a bitter laugh. "We all plan to live forever," he corrected.

Amanda nodded. "Even as we watch our immortal friends die."

Methos was silent at that. He still hadn't taken his eyes from Rebecca's grave.

"Would you rather have been beheaded at the Abbey?" Amanda persisted, reminding him of their earlier discussion left dangling.

Methos steeled himself for what was inevitably to come. "If it would have meant never having to stand here…"

"You know that's not what I meant."

Methos was silent so long that by the time he spoke, Amanda had all but given up on getting any answers out of him.

"When I revived and discovered my head in tact, everyone had gone except Rebecca's captain. He had disturbed the earth nearby, to make it look as though I'd been buried there. He was waiting patiently for me, sitting on the ground drawing icons in the dirt with the tip of a dagger. When I came to, he pointed me in the direction of the Channel, told me that I would find a small fishing village over there, and that it would be best if I got the hell outta dodge for the next hundred years or so." Methos laughed suddenly. "That was my first clue that he knew anything about immortals. He also made it quite clear that he never wanted to see my face around the Abbey again."

"Did you ever go back?" Amanda asked him. "I mean, I know you never did while I still lived there, but after?"

Methos was silent a moment, his eyes haunted. "The next time I saw St. Anne's it was in ruins, and Rebecca had long since fled."

"And if you had died back then, it would have been for the preservation of the Abbey," Amanda declared with muted triumph. "Instead of having to live in an age without Sanctuaries."

Methos didn't bother to refute the point. "First the Ancient died, then the fall of St. Anne's… and Darius's death, and now? Now..."

"You're the last one left."

Methos turned sharply, ripping his eyes from the grave at last to stare intently at Amanda. Rebecca's last surviving student…

"That's what you're thinking, isn't it?" she asked him, though it was more of a statement than a question.

Methos studied her face. It was blank, neutral, unassuming.

So very much like Rebecca.

"She never told me why I wasn't beheaded…" he said at length, redirecting his gaze back to the grave and changing the subject.

Amanda waved a dismissive hand. "Father Leonard verified that you were dead. Rebecca convinced Prince Æthelbert that you did not deserve the disgrace of having your head severed and then paraded back to Æthelbald on a pike."

Methos laughed despite himself. "She did?"

"It didn't take much convincing."

Silence again. Amanda almost reached for his hand.

Almost.

"I never saw him again."

Amanda bit her lip. Then: "he pardoned you, you know."

"What?"

"When he became king, Æthelbert pardoned you. He said that Æthelbald deserved whatever treason he got."

Methos laughed again, and this time it was a genuine, lighthearted sound. It made Amanda smile to hear it.

"She loved you," Methos said once the laughter had died.

"I wanted her to be proud of me," Amanda countered, soft regret coloring her voice.

"So be someone she would have been proud of," Methos replied in all seriousness. "You still have time."

Amanda didn't reply. She stood staring silently at Rebecca's grave, her expression oddly thoughtful.

"And you got me here," Methos continued around a half-hearted shrug. "She would have been proud of you for that."

Amanda offered up the ghost of a smile. "She loved you too, you know."

"I know," Methos answered. Truly, he had known that ever since the night of the feast.

But as with Amanda, Rebecca's love wasn't what mattered most to him. "But, did she ever forgive me?"

Amanda bit her lip, remembering what it was like when she realized—truly realized—what it was like to be forgiven. Rebecca had taught her that. "I'm sure she did," she answered over the lump in her throat. "Rebecca wasn't the type to carry a grudge."

Methos bit back a bitter smile. "You've never done anything to make her mad enough."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Amanda rebuffed, cynically serious.

Methos laughed at her, but not unkindly, and shook his head. "Trust me. I'm sure."

Amanda scowled, but secretly a grin was hidden there. "Why? What did you do that was so terrible?" _Who did you kill?_ she desperately wanted to ask.

_I sacked Babylon,_ Methos desperately wanted to tell her. Maybe then she would understand, and stop trying to debase herself to Rebecca's memory. A carefree thief with a heart of gold was nothing to be ashamed of. Thievery was nothing next to betrayal, and Amanda would die first.

Methos knew that, even if Amanda doubted.

She was better than him.

Surprisingly then Methos reached out, clasped her hand in his again and gave a gentle squeeze before releasing her again. "Tell MacLeod that I said he could tell you," he said at length, and Amanda blinked in surprise.

"And then remember, that's not what Rebecca was holding over me."

Amanda stammered slightly, her mind reeling. "Wait!" she called out as Methos turned to go.

Methos turned back around.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," he replied, evasively candid, but something in the way his eyes lit when he said that made Amanda question the depth of that reply. _Where was home?_ was sitting on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to ask it.

"Can I give you a lift?" she asked instead.

Methos smiled kindly but shook his head. "I think I'd rather walk this time," he replied, lighthearted candor taking any potnential sting out of his words before even as spoke them.

Amanda smiled softly, warmly, back at him. "Take care then."

Methos nodded. "You too, Amanda." And then he turned, and continued walking.

Amanda stood by Rebecca's grave, silently watching him go, until he rounded a bend in the cemetery path and disappeared from view.

Her eyes turned from the emptiness ahead back to the coldness of Rebecca's grave, yet she found that right now that it didn't chill her quite so much.

"Your brother is a good man, Estë of Mycenae." she said to her teacher's grave, smiling softly. "We'll take care of each other. I promise." With that said, Amanda too turned to go. She walked silently away from Rebecca just as the sun began to break through the clouds blanketing the sky.

Amanda casually picked her way back through the cemetery and out of the gates as the sun, now visible below the low cloud cover, began to slowly sink back behind the horizon. The light flashed brilliantly and then began to fade as metropolitan Paris obscured the sunset and cast long shadows that were slowly swallowed whole by the returning overcast of the day.

In the middle of the cemetery parking lot, as the fading light turned the world to ethereal gray, Amanda hugged herself briefly, then dropped her arms.

She smiled.

It was warm.

* * *

-_fin_- 


End file.
